Recently, a renewed international interest in Russia as a world political actor has emerged. Against this background, it is useful to better understand how international relations and foreign affairs are studied in Russia and how future Russian political actors, diplomatic personnel, ministerial bureaucrats, business managers, area experts, and other officials, activists, or researchers are taught for their work on the international arena. What are the theories, approaches, and schools that guide Russian teaching on, and research of, international relations? The current state of Russian studies of International Relations (IR), to a large degree, reflects the history and development of IR research during Soviet times. However, over the past 25 years, one could also observe a number of new developments-both substantive and institutional-which are important not only for properly assessing the new state of this academic discipline in Russia, but also for better comprehending Russian foreign policy as well as various international activities of Russia's regions, businesses, media, etc.

Autorentext
Dr. Marina Lebedeva is Professor of World Politics at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. She has taught at Moscow State University as well as at the Higher School of Economics.She is the author of, among other publications, Dealing with Conflicts in and around Russia: Enforce or Negotiate? (Clingendael 1992), Vam predstoiat peregovory (Ekonomika 1993), Politicheskoe uregulirovanie konfliktov (Aspekt Press 1997, 1999), Mirovaia politika (Aspekt Press 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007; Knorus 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016), co-author of Global'noe upravlenie (MGIMO 2013), Tsentral'naia Aziia: Sotsial'no-gumanitarnoe izmerenie (Aspekt Press 2016), and editor of "Privatizatsiia" mirovoi politiki (Golden-Bi 2008), Sovremennye global'nye problemy mirovoi politiki (Aspekt Press 2009), Metamorfozy mirovoi politiki (MGIMO 2012) as well as Publichnaia diplomatiia (Aspekt Press 2017). Her papers have been published in, among other journals, Global Society, International Negotiation, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, International Affairs (Moscow), Mirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, Politicheskie issledovaniia, and Mezhdunarodnye protsessy.The author of the foreword:Dr. Andrei P. Tsygankov is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at San Francisco State University, California.