Andriy Tyushka, Tracey German
Research on the nature, ways and effects of EU-Russia competition in their “common neighbourhood” has proliferated over the past two decades, although little attention has been paid so far to analysing the implications of such a geopolitical struggle for those states caught “in-between” the two power poles. This Special Issue seeks to address the current gap in the literature, with a particular focus on how the lasting sense of geostrategic “inbetweenness” has shaped the strategic and security cultures, as well as foreign policy choices, of those states located “in-between” the EU and Russia (the EU’s six Eastern Partnership countries, which at the same time form part of Russia’s “post-Soviet space”). It seeks to advance theoretical and conceptual debate on geostrategic “inbetweenness” as well as make an original empirical contribution to a better understanding of what underwrites “in-between” states’ choices in terms of their foreign and security policy models, and the drivers of continuity and change, against a backdrop of dynamic strategic interactions between the EU and Russia.