Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T13:50:02.828Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Russia — a leading or a fading power? Students’ geopolitical meta-narratives on Russia's role in the post-Soviet space

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Sirke Mäkinen
Sirke Mäkinen*
Affiliation:
School of Management, University of Tampere, Tampere 33014, Finland
*
∗ Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the construction of Russia's role in the post-Soviet space on the popular level of geopolitical culture. This empirical study is based on an interpretative analysis of open-ended survey responses of International Relations and Political Science students in Russian universities. The purpose of the article is twofold: first, to introduce the two main geopolitical meta-narratives constructed from students’ responses, Russia as a leading power and Russia as a fading power; and second, to show how they resonate with the broader discursive field on Russian identity and policies in the post-Soviet space. I argue that the two meta-narratives tell us about both support and challenges posed against the elite level of geopolitical culture, and Russia's foreign policy in the post-Soviet space. They also show variation on how Russia's role is represented, as well as on the goals which Russia should have vis-à-vis this space. The ideal role of Russia would be that of integration leader, but students disagree on whether this is the actual role now, or whether this can ever be attained. Moreover, not all would even agree with aspiring for this role; instead, Russia should re-orientate its foreign policy as well as domestic policy.

Keywords

Russiageopolitical cultureuniversity studentspost-Soviet spaceforeign policy
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 92 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agnew, John. 1998. Geopolitics: Re-visioning World Politics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Berg, Eiki. 2003. “Some Unintended Consequences of Geopolitical Reasoning in Post-Soviet Estonia: Texts and Policy Streams, Maps and Cartoons.” Geopolitics 8: 101–120.Google Scholar
Clandinin, Jean, and Connelly, Michael. 2000. Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research. San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.Google Scholar
Clunan, Anne L. 2009. Social Construction of Russia's Resurgence: Aspirations, Identity, and Security Interests. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Colton, Timothy J., and Hale, Henry E. 2014. “Putin's Uneasy Return and Hybrid Regime Stability. The 2012 Russian Election Studies Survey.” Problems of Post-Communism 61 (2): 3–22.Google Scholar
Dittmer, Jason, and Dodds, Klaus. 2008. “Popular Geopolitics Past and Future: Fandom, Identities and Audiences.” Geopolitics 13 (3): 437–457.Google Scholar
Dodds, Klaus. 2006. “Popular Geopolitics and Audience Dispositions: James Bond and the Internet Movie Database.” Transactions of the Institute of the British Geographers 31: 116–130.Google Scholar
Dijkink, Gertjan. 1997. National Identity and Geopolitical Visions. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dugin, Aleksandr. [1997] 1999. Osnovy geopolitiki: Geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii. 3rd ed. Moskva: Arktogeia-tsentr.Google Scholar
Enloe, Cynthia. 2013. Seriously! Investigating Crashes and Crises as If Women Mattered. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Foxall, Andrew. 2013. “Photographing Vladimir Putin: Masculinity, Nationalism and Visuality in Russian Political Culture.” Geopolitics 18 (1): 132–156.Google Scholar
Gee, James Paul. 2011. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. Hoboken: Routledge.Google Scholar
Guillaume, Xavier, ed. 2011. “The International as an Everyday Practice.” International Political Sociology 5: 446–462.Google Scholar
Hansen, L. 2006. Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Inozemtsev, Vladislav. 2013. “Russia's National Interest: What Does It (and What Should It) Mean for Post-Soviet Countries?” In Economization versus Power Ambitions. Rethinking Russia's Policy Towards Post-Soviet States, edited by Meister, Stegan, 35–46. Baden-Baden: Nomos.Google Scholar
Kolosov, Vladimir. 2000. Geopoliticheskoe polozhenie Rossii: predstavleniia i realnost' [Russia's geopolitical position: representations and reality]. Moskva: Art-Kur'er.Google Scholar
Kolossov, Vladimir. 2013. “The Vision of Europe and the World as Seen by Large Powers: The Case of the BRIC Countries.” Geographia Polonica 86 (2): 89–98.Google Scholar
Korostikov, Mikhail. 2014. Russia: Youth and Politics. Russie.Nei.Visions 76. www.ifri.org.Google Scholar
Kosachev, Konstantin. October 2012. “The Specifics of Russian Soft Power. “Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man to Fish, and You Feed Him for Life'.” Russia in Global Affairs number 3/2012. http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/print/number/The-Specifics-of-Russian-Soft-Power.Google Scholar
Laruelle, Marlène. 2008. Russian Eurasianism. An Ideology of Empire. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.Google Scholar
Makarychev, Andrey. 2013. “Soft Power, Regionalism and Common Neighborhoods: Russia's Potential in a Competitive Environment.” Bilge Strateji 5 (8): 37–56.Google Scholar
Mäkinen, Sirke. 2003. “On the Geopolitical Discourses of the Russian Yabloko Association, 1993-2001.” Geopolitics 8 (1): 149–180.Google Scholar
Mäkinen, Sirke. 2008. Russian Geopolitical Visions and Argumentation. Parties of Power, Democratic and Communist Opposition on Chechnia and NATO, 1994-2003. Acta Universitatis Tamperensis 1293. Tampere: Tampere University Press.Google Scholar
Mäkinen, Sirke. 2011. “Surkovian Narrative on the Future of Russia: Making Russia a World Leader.” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 27 (2): 143–165.Google Scholar
Mäkinen, Sirke. 2013. “Politiikkatieteiden Diskursseista Venäjällä [On political studies discourses in Russia].” Idäntutkimus [Finnish Review of East European Studies] 20 (1): 38–56.Google Scholar
Mäkinen, Sirke. 2014. “Geopolitics Teaching and Worldviews - Making the Next Generation in Russia.” Geopolitics 19 (1): 86–108.Google Scholar
Mamadouh, Virginie. 2003. “11 September and Popular Geopolitics: A Study of Websites Run for and by Dutch Moroccans.” Geopolitics 8 (3): 191–216.Google Scholar
Mamadouh, Virginie. 2008. “After Van Gogh: The Geopolitics of the Tsunami Relief Effort in the Netherlands.” Geopolitics 13 (2): 205–231.Google Scholar
Mankoff, Jeffrey. 2009. Russian Foreign Policy. The Return of Great Power Politics. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Marsh, Steve. 2008. “EU-Russia Security Relations and the Survey of Russian Federation Foreign Policy: One Year on.” European Security 17 (2-3): 185–208.Google Scholar
Neumann, Iver. 2005. “Russia as a Great Power.” In Russia as a Great Power. Dimensions of Security under Putin, edited by Hedenskog, Jakob, Konnander, Vilhelm, Nygren, Bertil, Oldberg, Ingmar and Pursiainen, Christer, 24–41. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Neumann, Iver B. 2013. “Russia in International Society Over the Longue Durée. Lessons from Early Rus’ and Early post-Soviet State Formation.” In Russia's Identity in International Relations. Images, Perceptions, Misperceptions, edited by Taras, Ray, 24–41. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nikitina, Yulia. 2014. “Russia and the Baltic States: Problematizing the Soviet Legacy Discourse.” Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity 42 (1): 1–7.Google Scholar
Nygren, Bertil. 2011. “Russia and Georgia - From Confrontation to war: What is Next?” In Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century, edited by Kanet, Roger E., 101–120. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Oldberg, Ingmar. 2011. “Aims and Means in Russian Foreign Policy.” In Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century, edited by Kanet, Roger E., 30–58. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
O'Loughlin, John. 2001. “Geopolitical Fantasies, National Strategies and Ordinary Russians in the Post-Communist Era.” Geopolitics 6 (3): 17–48.Google Scholar
O'Loughlin, John, Tuathail, Gearóid Ó., and Kolossov, Vladimir. 2004. “A ‘Risky Westward Turn'? Putin's 9-11 Script and Ordinary Russians.” Europe-Asia Studies 56 (1): 3–34.Google Scholar
O'Loughlin, John, Tuathail, Gearóid Ó., and Kolossov, Vladimir. 2006. “Russian Geopolitical Culture and Public Opinion: The Masks of Proteus Revisited.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 30: 322–335.Google Scholar
Ó Tuathail, Gearoid and Agnew, John. 1992. “Geopolitics and Discourse: Practical Geopolitical Reasoning in American Foreign Policy.” Political Geography 11 (2): 190–204.Google Scholar
Patterson, Molly and Renwick Monroe, Kristen. 1998. “Narrative in Political Science.” Annual Review of Political Science 1:315-331.Google Scholar
Phelan, James. 2008. “Narratives in Contest; or, Another Twist in the Narrative Turn.” PMLA by the Modern Language Association of America 123 (1): 166–175.Google Scholar
Prince, Gerald. 1982. Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative. Berlin: Mouton Publishers.Google Scholar
Pursiainen, Christer. 1999. Venäjän Idea, Utopia ja Missio [Russian idea, utopia and mission]. Ulkopoliittisen instituutin julkaisuja 6. Helsinki: Gaudeamus.Google Scholar
Putin, Vladimir. 2012. “Vladimir Putin on Foreign Policy: Russia and the Changing World.” http://valdaiclub.com/politics/39300/print_edition/.Google Scholar
Putin, Vladimir. 2013. “Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly.” http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/6402.Google Scholar
Raento, Pauliina. 2006. “Communicating Geopolitics Through Postage Stamps: The Case of Finland.” Geopolitics 11 (4): 601–629.Google Scholar
Saivetz, Carol R. 2012. “The Ties That Bind? Russia's Evolving Relations with its Neighbors.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45: 401–412.Google Scholar
Sakwa, Richard. 2010. “The Dual State in Russia.” Post-Soviet Affairs 26 (3): 185–206.Google Scholar
Shaw, Ian G. R., and Sharp, Joanne P. 2013. “Playing with the Future: Social Irrealism and the Politics of Aesthetics.” Social & Cultural Geography 14 (3): 341–359.Google Scholar
Shenhav, Shaul R. 2006. “Political Narratives and Political Reality.” International Political Science Review 27 (3): 245–262.Google Scholar
Slezkine, Yuri. 1994. “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism.” Slavic Review 53 (2): 414–452.Google Scholar
Smith, Graham. 1999. “The Masks of Proteus: Russia, Geopolitical Shift and the New Eurasianism.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24: 481–500.Google Scholar
Tolz, Vera. 1998. “Forging the Nation: National Identity and Nation Building in Post-Communist Russia.” Europe-Asia Studies 50 (6): 993–1022.Google Scholar
Törrönen, Jukka. 2000. “The Passionate Text. The Pending Narrative as a Macrostructure of Persuasion.” Social Semiotics 10 (1): 81–96.Google Scholar
Tsygankov, Andrei P. 2003. “Mastering Space in Eurasia: Russian Geopolitical Thinking after the Soviet Break-up.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 35: 101–127.Google Scholar
Tsygankov, Andrei P. 2006. Russia's Foreign Policy. Change and Continuity in National Identity. Lanham, MO: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Tsygankov, Andrei P. 2011. “Preserving Influence in a Changing World. Russia's Grand Strategy.” Problems of Post-Communism 58 (2): 28–44.Google Scholar
Ziegler, Charles E. 2011. “Russia, Central Asia, and the Caucasus After the Georgia Conflict.” In Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century, edited by Kanet, Roger E., 155–178. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, William. 2002. The Russian People and Foreign Policy. Russian Elite and Mass Perspectives, 1993-2000. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar