The Kortunov Foreign Policy Debates
The Kortunov Foreign Policy Debates are a project initiated by PICREADI. It is conducted in the format of a rhetorical competition that deals with foreign policy and international relations.

The Debates are held in the memory of Dr. Sergei V. Kortunov, a Russian political scientist and the author of many publications on national security and identity.

Since 2012, the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) has been PICREADI's permanent partner in organizing the Kortunov Debates.

In 2019, the Debates took place in the format of a discussion on three topics between Russian experts of RIAC/Creative Diplomacy and their American colleagues of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University on the other side. In total, there were three pairs of participants, with everyone taking a yes/no position on each question.

Also, the audience voted not for a particular participant, but for a certain response to the question posed within the Debate (yes/no). The online-voting was taken place before and after the discussion. The goal was to understand to what extent the audience changes its attitude toward the presented topic and whether a speaker manages to be persuasive.
Our honoured speakers from Russian side - Ivan Timofeev (Director of programs at the RIAC), Pavel Kanevsky (Associate Professor at the MSU), and Alexey Naumov (journalist at Kommersant) - had a great discussion on global issues with their American counterparts of The Fletcher School - Daniel Drezner (Professor), Sulmaan Khan (Associate Professor), and Chris Miller (Associate Professor).

The Kortunov Debates 2019 was an innovative and fresh format for both sides, and we suppose it was successful! We want to thank all the experts, organizers and online/offline participants for watching us! Hope to see you next year!

Video of the Debates is available below: