Skip to main content
Log in

The problem of ‘the international’ in Russian identity formation

  • Original Article
  • Published:
International Politics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A new era in international politics is gradually taking shape in which the legacy of the Cold War is gradually fading, but in which new lines of division are emerging. The major institutions of the Cold War period are undergoing a long decay although the political processes associated with them are becoming increasingly dysfunctional. New forms of multi-polarity are taking shape accompanied by the struggle between defenders of the status quo and those ready to adapt to the structural revisionism inherent in the new pattern of international politics. In all of this, Russia acts as the bellwether, developing as a distinct and separate pole in the international system rather than joining the Western constellation, as was anticipated after the end of the Cold War. Russia's great power identity in the international system is accompanied by domestic systemic specificities, which reinforce differentiation at the structural level. Russia's neo-revisionism does not repudiate the present balance in international order, but seeks to create what it considers to be a more comprehensive and equal system. This can be seen in its various forms of interaction and modes of engagement with ‘the international’. In methodological terms, the attempt to analyse these changes through a Cold War lens is a categorical error that perpetuates anachronistic paradigms. By disaggregating Russia's engagement with the international into a number of distinct processes, we can delineate more clearly the interaction of structural and systemic factors that sustain Russia's neo-revisionism.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adler, E. and Pouliot, V. (2011) International practices. International Theory 3 (1): 1–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Avgerinos, K.P. (2009) Russia's public diplomacy effort: What the Kremlin is doing and why it's not working. Journal of Public and International Affairs 20 (Spring): 115–132.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bigo, D. (2011) ‘Pierre Bourdieu and international relations: Power of practices, practices of power’, in special issue ‘Bourdieu and the international’. International Political Sociology 5 (3): 225–258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blum, D.W. (ed.) (2008) Russia and Globalization: Identity, Security and Society in an Era of Change. Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Centre Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bull, H. (1995) The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, originally published in 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burgess, J.P. (2007) The evolution of European union law and Carl Schmitt's theory of the Nomos of Europe. In: L. Odysseos and F. Petitio (eds.) The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt, pp. 185–201.

  • Chernyak, E.B. (1996) Tsiviliografiya: nauka o tsivilizatsii. Moscow, Russia: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deyermond, R. (2007) Security and Sovereignty in the Former Soviet Union. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

    Google Scholar 

  • Draft of the European Security Treaty. (2009) 29 November, http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/275.

  • Geuss, R. (2008) Philosophy and Real Politics. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Golubovskii, D. (2009) Zagovor bankirov. Moscow, Russia: Eksmo Algoritm.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gong, G.W. (1984) The Standard of ‘Civilisation’ in International Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gracheva, T.V. (2009) Nevidimaya khazariya: Algoritmy geopolitiki i strategii tainykh voin mirovoi zakulisy. Ryazan, Russia: Zerna.

    Google Scholar 

  • Granatova, A.A. (2010) Operatsiya ‘Gorbi’. Moscow, Russia: Algoritm.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haukkala, H. (2008) A norm-maker or a norm-taker? The changing normative parameters of Russia's place in Europe. In: T. Hopf (ed.) Russia's European Choice. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 35–58.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Hopf, T. (2010) The logic of habit in international relations. European Journal of International Relations 16 (4): 539–561.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katzenstein, P.J. (ed.) (2010) Civilizations in World Politics: Plural and Pluralist Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kliuchnikov, B.F. (2009) Mirovoi krizis kak zagovor. Moscow, Russia: Algoritm/Eksmo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kokoshin, A. (2006) Real’nyi suverenitet v sovremennoi miropoliticheskoi sistemy, 3rd edn. Moscow, Russia: Evropa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koselleck, R. (1988) Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society. Oxford: Berg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kratochwil, F. (2007) Rethinking the ‘inter’ in international politics. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 35 (3): 495–511, and other articles in the special issue of the journal devoted to an examination of contemporary theories of ‘the international’.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neumann, I.B. and Sending, O.J. (2007) ‘The international’ as governmentality. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 35 (3): 677–701.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neocleous, M. (2011) The police of civilization: The war on terror as civilizing offensive. International Political Sociology 5 (2): 144–159.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neumann, I. and Pouliot, V. (2011) Untimely Russia: Hysteresis in Russian–Western relations over the past millennium. Security Studies 20 (1): 105–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nye, J.S. (2011) The Future of Power: Its Changing Nature and Use in the Twenty-first Century. New York: Public Affairs.

    Google Scholar 

  • Odysseos, L. and Petitio, F. (eds.) (2007) Introduction: The international political thought of Carl Schmitt. In: The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal War and the Crisis of Global Order. London: Routledge, pp. 1–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Panarin, I.N. (2006) Informatsionnaya voina i geopolitika. Moscow, Russia: Pokolenie.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prokhanov, A. (2002) Gospodin Geksogen: Roman. Moscow, Russia: Ad Marginem.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prokhanov, A.A. (2010) Tsena izmeny: Sbornik statei. Moscow, Russia: Eksmo/Algoritm.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reus-Smit, C. (2001) Constructivism. In: S. Burchill et al (eds.) Theories of International Relations. London: Palgrave, pp. 209–230.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberg, J. (2005) Globalization theory: A post-mortem. International Politics 42 (1): 2–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sakwa, R. (2011) ‘Russia and Europe: Whose society?’, Special issue, Ioannis Stivachtis and Mark Webber (eds.), ‘Europe After Enlargement. The Journal of European Integration 33 (2): 197–214.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schechter, J.L. (1998) Russian Negotiating Behavior: Continuity and Transition. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt, C. (2006) The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum, Translated and annotated by G.L. Ulmen. New York: Telos Press Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheiko, K. and Brown, S. (2009) Nationalist Imaginings on the Russian Past: Anatolii Fomenko and the Rise of Alternative History in Post-Communist Russia. Stuttgart, Germany: Ibidem.

    Google Scholar 

  • Surkov, V. (2006) Suverenitet – eto politicheskii sinonim konkurento-sposobnosti. In: N. Garadzha (ed.) Suverinitet. Moscow, Russia: Evropa, pp. 43–79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Surkov, V. (2008a) Suverenitet: politicheskii sinonim konkurentosposobnosti. In: V. Surkov (ed.) Teksty 97–07. Moscow, Russia: Evropa, pp. 143–147.

    Google Scholar 

  • Surkov, V. (ed.) (2008b) Natsionalizatsiya budushchego. In: Teksty 97–07, Moscow, Russia: Evropa, pp. 43–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Suzuki, S. (2008) Seeking ‘legitimate’ great power status in post-cold war international society: China's and Japan's participation in UNPKO. International Relations 22 (1): 45–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsygankov, A.P. (2007) Finding a civilisational idea: ‘West’, ‘Eurasia’, and ‘Euro-East’ in Russia's foreign policy. Geopolitics 12 (3): 375–399.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tunander, O., Baev, P. and Einagel, V.I. (eds.) (1997) Geopolitics in Post-Wall Europe: Security, Territory and Identity. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vinokurov, V.I. (2011) Istoriya voennoi diplomatii, Vol. 4, Voennaya diplomatiya na sovremennom etape. Moscow, Russia: Inzhener, Peremeny.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wendt, A. (1999) Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, UK.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Yakunin, V., Bagdasaryan, B. and Sulakshin, S. (2010) Zapadnya: Novye tekhnologii bor’by s rossiiskoi gosudarstvennost’yu. Moscow, Russia: Eksmo.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Sakwa, R. The problem of ‘the international’ in Russian identity formation. Int Polit 49, 449–465 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2012.10

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2012.10

Keywords

Navigation