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Describes the failure of the constitution‐drafting process to contribute to democratic consolidation in Belarus. Today, Belarus is considered the worst authoritarian regime in Eastern Europe. The chapter characterizes the Constitution of Belarus as an occasionally used tool for manipulation by the country's autocratic president. While the president considers the Constitution he drafted to be the sole foundation of law in the country, the democratic opposition considers it illegal and illegitimate. Nevertheless, as the focal point of the struggle between President Lukashenka and the democratic opposition, the significance of the Constitution remains strong. The chapter emphasizes how certain choices and omissions in the constitution‐drafting process laid the foundation for the current undemocratic regime. The chapter indicates reasons behind the failure of constitutionalism in Belarus, such as a weak national identity, the absence of economic reforms during the first five years of independence, the state monopoly of the electronic media, and Russia's strong economic and political support of the Belarus's authoritarian leader.

Compares different paths of democratic consolidation in Belarus and Ukraine since the disintegration of the USSR. The author argues that Ukraine has evolved beyond ‘Electoral Democracy’ towards ‘ Liberal Democracy’. By contrast, after 1994 Belarus has seen democratic erosion and regression from ‘Electoral Democracy’ to authoritarianism. The chapter advances three propositions. Firstly, the strength of ethnicity and national identity at the start of transition process can have a direct impact upon the choice of strategy, speed, and domestic policies adopted by the ruling elites. Secondly, the elites have little choice but to choose a foreign policy orientated towards ‘returning to Europe’—the source of security assurance and technical and financial assistance. Thirdly, the international community can play a highly positive role by providing incentives and assistance that persuade countries that have embarked on democratization to continue the process in the hope of reaching the final destination of democratic consolidation. The chapter is divided into three parts. The first places the transition in Ukraine, Belarus, and the rest of the former USSR within a theoretical and comparative framework by focusing on domestic factors. The second part discusses the international influences faced by a country that has participated in the reform process (Ukraine), and Russian influences on a country that has not done so (Belarus). The last two parts examine Ukraine's ‘return to Europe’ and Belarus’ ‘return to Eurasia’.

As Bohdan Khmelnytsky's rule took hold, the new and still inchoate Cossack polity became ever more deeply involved in the European system of international relations. Having rebelled against the Catholic Commonwealth, the Cossacks almost automatically made enemies of the Catholic states of Europe and, by the same token, found potential allies among the non-Catholic powers, whether Islamic, such as the Crimea and the Ottoman Empire, or Protestant, as in the cases of Transylvania and Sweden, a rising star in European politics. Orthodox Muscovy took an immediate interest in the Cossack revolt taking place across its border, as did Orthodox Moldavia. The major potential ally of the Cossack polity in the Orthodox world was not little Moldavia, squeezed between the Ottomans and the Commonwealth, but mighty and traditionally anti-Polish Muscovy. The initial concord in relations between the two Orthodox partners, Polish-Lithuanian Rus' and the Tsardom of Muscovy, had disappeared. The uneasy alliance between Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus in which Orthodoxy was destined to play a fundamental role still lay ahead.

This chapter begins by discussing that Kievan Russia is generally presented as playing a significant part in the brilliant and glorious initial period of Russian history. It narrates that the Mongol's utter destruction of Kiev in 1240 may be considered the ultimate end of the Kievan period. It explains that Kievan history can be better understood as a series of extraordinary performances by a number of able princes, with the rest of the time devoted mainly to civil wars. It discusses that the political development of the Kievan state was sustained by its rich and varied economy, and the Kievan state was traditionally considered as a trading state, founded on the waterway from the Baltic Sea to Constantinople. It notes that Kievan Russia is located in the Ukraine and that this time deserves full consideration as a very impressive initial period of the rather fragmented and tragic Ukrainian history. It also examines Kievan Christianity, literature, architecture, and arts.

This chapter considers the uses of the anti-trafficking agenda of the authoritarian government of Belarus. It identifies the ways the Belarus government uses anti-trafficking as a basis for other self-sufficient and nationalist agendas, and by making travel abroad by students and young people more difficult. It notes that the trafficking indicators of the State Department ignore other forms of human rights repression or the excesses of policing systems in Belarus. This chapter also emphasizes the relevant theme of the importance of global indicators in authoritarian contexts, an area that also lacks research.

Belarus is also an ‘in-betweener’ country apparently caught between the choice of EU and Russia. Kiryl Kascian, however, shows that this is not a choice which the Belarusian authorities wish to make - they instead seek a relationship with both the EU and Russia. Belarus provides perhaps the starkest example of the limitations of the EU’s values-based approach to its neighbours. Belarus’ domestic political system and its prioritisation of the relationship with Russia mean that the EU lacks any real impact. Belarus does, however, seek a more pragmatic, interest-based relationship in contrast to the EU’s values-based approach which appears to be going nowhere. The chapter also raises the problems of the perception of European identity promoted through EU-isation. While Belarus considers itself European and at the centre of a wider Europe, EU-isation, as it is currently configured, relegates it to the periphery. This theme of differing perceptions of European identity and the consequences of the narrow application of EU-isation recurs across the chapters and will be re-addressed in the conclusion of this volume.

This chapter focuses on the counterintuitive strategic alliance between Belarus and Venezuela. The inexorable erosion of human rights in Belarus has resulted in the country becoming a virtual pariah state. The Belarusian political and military leadership was quick to realize that much of this weaponry and military hardware could be sold in the global arms trade. Whereas Venezuela stands to gain from technology transfers and licensed manufacturing, Belarus in turn hopes to expand international markets for their manufacturing firms and, if the petroleum joint ventures succeed, recieve a significant infusion of cash as well. The chapter also discusses the scenario of regime legitimacy, economic cooperation, and military assistance, as a result of Belarus-Venezuela ties.

Chapter 6 describes the transformation of Belarusian post-Chernobyl research efforts, from the systematic development of radiological research infrastructures in the last years of the Soviet Union to massive restructuring and reframing of Chernobyl-related research ten years later, as a result of changing political and economic interests of the Belarusian government. Infrastructural disruptions to data collection and analysis created the conditions for research relying on theoretically, rather than empirically, driven approaches, and this bias supports minimizing the scope of Chernobyl-related health effects. The chapter observes that restructuring and reframing of Chernobyl-related research led to the near disappearance of the radiation factor as an object of inquiry, and to the greater invisibility of local experts who would claim expertise in the health effects of radiation exposure due to the Chernobyl accident.

This chapter discusses the following events: the limited Soviet offensive in Belarus; the Soviet minor offensive in Ukraine; the Soviets and the Ukrainian issue; the Soviet major offensive in Belarus; the Spa agreement; the Curzon note; Soviet peace treaties with Lithuania and Latvia; the reestablishment of Soviet Belarus; Soviet military successes and strategic errors; Soviet diplomatic delays and peace proposals; the Battle of Warsaw; and the Minsk peace conference.

This chapter discusses the following events: the final defeat of Poland's Ukrainian and Belarusian allies; the failure of federalism in Central Lithuania; the recess in negotiations and new delegations; accusations of ill will exchanged by the Poles and Soviets; how Ioffe shored up Dąbski's position; Soviet opposition to international involvement in the Wilno issue; stalemate in the commissions; and Ioffe's frustration with Moscow.

This chapter discusses Soviet relations with Lithuania and Belarus; the treatment of prisoners of war; distrust and tension between the Poles and Soviets; stalemate over the gold reserves issue; the Soviet note to Lithuania; the crisis of the negotiations; Chicherin's struggle with the Moscow specialists; continued crisis in Riga; Krasin's payment schemes; the agreement on repatriation; agreement on the remaining issues; Moscow's attempt to delay the signing of the definitive peace with Poland; and signing of the definitive on 18 March.

This epilogue presents some final thoughts about the Soviet–Polish peace treaty, which marked the end of a two-year military and diplomatic conflict, with each side getting what it wanted. The Poles obtained what they viewed as Polish ethnic territory in the Borderlands, together with a strategic defensive line. The Soviets secured their power over most of the Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnic territories, which were to be held on their own terms in the absence of any further pressure from Polish federalism.

This chapter deals with the country case studies of Belarus and Armenia. These states have been among Russia’s closest allies since their independence and offer a unique perspective on how Moscow’s compatriot-driven reimperialization policies can be pursued in highly cooperative, dependent and vulnerable post-Soviet states. The analysis demonstrates that such states are less able to resist both Russia’s softer and its more coercive means of influence, so that they are maintained de facto in Russia’s imperial project without the need to resort to outright aggression.

Belarus is regarded as the most ‘Russified’ of the former Soviet republics, however the majority of Belarusians do not self-identify as Russians. The chapter explores the interface between actual language use, language attitudes and national identity. In order to identify the recurring patterns of identity construction in Belarus examined the data from both Belarusian linguistic demographics and the metalinguistic discourses of various linguistic actors. It is argued that Belarus presents a post-Soviet paradox: uniquely it displays a weak link between national identification and the use of the titular language. However the linguistic ideologies, especially the ‘one nation -- one language’ belief, are responsible for producing a complex linguistic subjectivity as for keeping the status of Russian as a national language of Belarus contested.

The book makes three main interventions. First is the use of Jewish economic history to understand both the development of Jewish society and its relations with the surrounding world. The methodology of New institutional economics, emphasizing the connection between economic and cultural factors, is employed. Second is the study of the Jews’ economic roles in the specific context of magnate estates in eighteenth-century Poland-Lithuania. In this late feudal setting, Jews achieved enormous financial success, which they translated into improved social status and even power. This process is at the heart of the analysis here. Third is the history of the Radziwiłł family and its estates in Lithuania. From a low point at the beginning of the period, the family reached the pinnacle of its power at the end. This rise was based on increased estate incomes, the importance for which of Jewish economic activity is examined here.