Carnegie
Corporation
of New York
Spring 2005
Carnegie Corporation’s support also filled important voids in both
the American and Russian academic terrain. The graduate programs in the
U.S. reinvigorated interdisciplinary expertise in the region, as well
as exposed students to first-rate training in sophisticated social science
methods that provided a sound basis for scholarly research and policy
analysis. Ironically, this training became especially important with the
collapse of the Soviet Union, as it created a new generation of specialists
in the area who had both the rigorous training and strong appreciation
for the historical legacy to contend with the contradictory dynamic and
static dimensions to post-Soviet transformation. Furthermore, as the Academy
subsequently deemphasized area studies, the Corporation’s research
grants provided modest relief by including provisions to support valuable
research assistantships, travel and work-study for graduate students.
This was complemented by PONARS, which offered important practical grounding
for young scholars to test new ideas for research with each other, and
to tease out the implications for policy with American government officials.
The Corporation’s HEFSU initiative, even in mid-course, has had
a demonstrable and growing impact on Russian scholars in the much overlooked
social sciences and humanities that are key to Russia’s intellectual
integration into the Euro-Atlantic community. In addition to renewing
infrastructure and affording regional access to valuable scholarly and
professional periodicals, IPS grants have supported 6,000-7,000 academics
and introduced entirely novel approaches to learning across Russia. Grants
to Stanford University created a virtual classroom environment (via distance
learning technologies and pedagogies) where Russian and American stu-dents
and faculty now exchange perspectives and methodologies for understanding
contemporary international terrorism and other security issues. This has
been reinforced by grants to Russian faculty for travel to U.S. institutions
to forge collaborative research and teaching ventures with American colleagues,
refine social science cur-ricula and develop new courses.
The Corporation’s investment in Russia-related projects also produced
notable unintended consequences. The Russia Initiative, in particular,
spawned ongoing dialogues not only between economic and security specialists,
but also across generations in Russia on the country’s future trajectory.
The joint study groups, as observed by Steinbruner, are the only venue
where “the old guard steeped in traditional hard security can interact
and exchange views on the country’s predicament in a politically
safe setting with Russia’s new, forward-thinking young class of
entrepreneurs.” Another byproduct has been the afterglow of the
Hague Initiative that exceeded the otherwise modest impact on tempering
hostilities in the North Caucasus. Speedie has observed, for instance,
that some of the early ideas on center-regional relations and political
autonomy for coping with the problems posed by Tatarstan and Chechnya
have been aired by similar participants in more recent discussions about
crisis prevention in the broader Islamic world. Finally, Carnegie Corporation’s
experience fostered synergies with the MacArthur Foundation’s regional
education and training programs, as well as produced spillover effects
for other American foundations working in Russia. As acknowledged by Senator
Nunn, the current chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), the Corporation’s
model for “bringing bright people together to analyze problems in
depth and creating a pipeline for transferring new ideas into the policymaking
community for valuable practical effect” is one that he hopes to
replicate with NTI’s grantmaking efforts.