The impact of the withdrawal from Afghanistan on Russia’s security. Egmont Security Policy Brief No. 54, March 2014

ISAF’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 will directly impact the wider region. Not only is there a risk of instability spilling over to Central Asia, but the drawdown will also accelerate the ongoing shift in the balance of power in Central Asia towards China. Should a spillover occur, the burden will mainly fall on Russia and China. Russia will, however, only continue playing the dominant role in the security of the former Soviet Central Asia (FSCA) until China takes on responsibility for the security of its direct sphere of influence or “dingwei”. Russia’s Near Abroad, however, overlaps both with the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood in Europe and China’s dingwei in Central Asia and the Far East. It is, therefore, necessary to approach Russian reactions to these encroachments on its historical spheres of influence in a single context, taking into account the interrelationship between these three.

Ramzanistan. Russia's Chechen Problem. OSW POINT OF VIEW Number 54, 2015-08-25

The political activity and growing independence of Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov raises questions about his loyalty and the possibility of his openly renouncing his servitude to Moscow. Such a scenario seems unlikely because of the dependence of Kadyrov’s regime on Russia. He is burdened by his republic’s financial dependence, the stain of collaboration and the crimes committed on his own people, and so his regime cannot exist without Moscow’s support. However, Kadyrov’s dependence on Moscow and the apparent stability of the situation in Chechnya do not mean that a lasting peace has been established there. The current plan for governing the republic and the relationship between Moscow and Grozny is a temporary solution, based not on durable solutions, but on the situational convergence of the Kremlin and Kadyrov’s interests. A change of government in the Kremlin, or to an even greater degree a domestic crisis in Russia which weakens its position in the Caucasus, would mean the fall of Kadyrov’s regime, and the reactivation of pro-independence rhetoric in Chechnya.

The altar and the throne alliance. The Russian Orthodox Church vs. the government in Russia. OSW STUDIES 54, 2016-01-04

The Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate (ROC), the largest religious community in Russia, plays an essential role in the process of the cultural and national self-identification of the Russian people. Being a socio-political institution with a centuries-long history, it possesses great symbolic capital and enjoys public respect, which has been used for political purposes. Since Vladimir Putin regained the presidency in 2012, in order to strengthen the political regime in Russia the Kremlin has begun to extensively draw upon conservative ideology and promote the traditional moral and social values which the Church is viewed as the guardian of. This has resulted in establishing closer relations between the secular government and the ROC, as well as in a greater engagement of ROC hierarchs and organisations in domestic and foreign policy issues. This situation exposes the ROC to criticism for being excessively involved in politics, and in the longer term, to the risks linked to potential destabilisation of the governmental system in Russia.

Measuring Dependency Ratios using National Transfer Accounts. CEPS Working Document No. 420/April 2016

It is now widely recognised that the socio-economic changes that ageing societies will bring about are poorly captured by the traditional demographic dependency ratios (DDRs), such as the old-age dependency ratio that relates the number of people aged 65+ to the working-age population. Future older generations will have increasingly better health and are likely to work longer. By combining population projections and National Transfer Accounts (NTA) data for seven European countries, we project the quantitative impact of ageing on public finances until 2040 and compare it to projected DDRs. We then simulate the public finance impact of changes in three key indicators related to the policy responses to population ageing: net immigration, healthy ageing and longer working lives. We do this by linking age-specific public health transfers and labour market participation rates to changes in mortality. Four main findings emerge: first, the simple old-age dependency ratio overestimates the future public finance challenges faced by the countries studied – significantly so for some countries, e.g. Austria, Finland and Hungary. Second, healthy ageing has a modest effect (on public finances) except in the case of Sweden, where it is substantial. Third, the long-run effect of immigration is well captured by the simple DDR measure if immigrants are similar to the native population. Finally, increasing the length of working lives is central to addressing the public finance challenge of ageing. Extending the length of working lives by three to four years over the next 25 years – equivalent to the increase in life expectancy – severely limits the impact of ageing on public transfers.