Russian Realism

Defending 'Derzhava' in International Relations

Andrei P. Tsygankov

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781000554380
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Russian Realism analyzes Russian contemporary geopolitical thinking, or realism, and explores the notion of Derzhava as the foundation of Russian realism.

The author defines Russian realists as all those favoring actions by the Russian state in defense of its interests, including protection of national sovereignty, security, power, and prestige on the international scene. What makes Russian realism distinct is its "vision of Russianness" formed by the country's historical, cultural/religious experience, and its semi-peripheral position in the international system. The vision stresses the importance of survival, preservation of strong state, and protection of national interests from external infringement.

Mainstream literature, especially in the West, tends to ignore Russian theoretical debates and narratives; this book remedies this by providing significant insights into Russian realist thinking. It explores the historical unfolding of the longstanding national debates about Russia's role in Europe/the West and how realists have reframed these debates in response to multiple international and domestic developments. The book also identifies distinct groups and debates within the broad school of Russian realism.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Russian foreign policy, IR theory, diplomatic studies, political science, and European history. It will also appeal to a broader general audience of those interested in Russia and international politics.

1Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781003247647-1

Scholars do not like to think about their intellectual dependence on the status of their country, and on ambitions of its political elites; it disturbs their sense of belonging to a cosmopolitan, free-floating community of science … And yet, the link exists. And it is sometimes reinforced by institutional arrangements.

Stanley Hoffmann (1995)

As the world departs from the West-centered international system, nations across the globe are actively engaging in discussions of security, survival, and unity under external uncertainty and potential instability. Russian IR discourse is also increasingly sensitive to these developments, and since the 2000s, realism has reemerged as the most prominent approach to international relations. Realism prioritizes security, sovereignty, and national interests. Russian realism is both similar to and distinct from that of Western nations. The latter reflects Russia's distinct culture and history and should be assessed on its own terms, that is, without West-centric expectations, which are widespread in contemporary IR theory. This chapter introduces the topic by situating realism in the national-global debate, defining Russia's realist thinking and describing the book's argument and organization.

Realism and the National-Global Debate

The oldest tradition in IR theory, realism has developed multiple schools and approaches. As a result, there are various divides and disagreements within the tradition.¹ One important divide is between the old, classical and modern, scientific realists. Classical realists have their intellectual roots in political theory. Their analysis of international politics is grounded in assumptions about human nature. By relying on historically and culturally sensitive reasoning, classical realists tend to produce a politically contextual, rather than universal knowledge. In their view, knowledge and theories reflect the realities of power. Being central to human motivation and the organization of the international system, power shapes science. In the memorable words of E. H. Carr (2001, xiii), the “study of international relations in English-speaking countries is simply a study of the best way to run the world from positions of strength.”

Alternatively, modern or scientific realists advocate scholarship based on the notion of rationality and universal scientific standards. While classical realists have been open to studying the irrational (Edinger 2021), modern realists are rationalists and tend to view scientific standards as reflecting the ontological unity of the global world. In their assessment, such ontological unity of the world requires a commitment to certain epistemological and scholarly standards. Being rationalists, modern realists tend to be critical of contextual and culturally specific knowledge as incomplete and potentially misleading. While Carr viewed power and scholarship as intimately connected, contemporary realists find the argument to be flawed. For example, a prominent American scholar, John Mearsheimer, rejects the idea that the United States' global power influences scholarship, “[i]t is often said that the international relations (IR) scholarly community is too American-centric and needs to broaden its horizons. I disagree” (Colgan 2019, 301).

Mearsheimer is not alone. Many contemporary realists dispute the notion that mainstream American and Western IR approaches are frequently biased, reflecting intellectual assumptions and political preferences of the West. In the new IR debate about the importance of grounding the global in the local, realists tend to deny scholars outside the West the opportunity to develop their own scientific approaches consistent with their cultural assumptions and historical perspectives. As believers in rationalism and global ontological unity, realists view attempts by non-Western cultures to create their own schools and approaches of IR as unsustainable and even prone to self-marginalization. In the perception of realists, as well as other rationalists in Western IR, such attempts question the established universal principles of scientific knowledge (analysis, verification, falsifiability, and others). Another American scholar, Jack Snyder, expressed his readiness to study Confucianist thought for an understanding Chinese strategic culture, while refusing to consider Confucianism as a legitimate philosophical foundation behind a special Chinese school of IR (Acharya 2011).

However, in the national-global debate, there are many who assess Western IR approaches as “parochial” (Alker and Biersteker 1984; Hagmann and Biersteker 2014), not global, and reflecting of ethnocentric biases. As argued by Stanley Hoffmann in the epigraph quote, academics “do not like to think about their intellectual dependence on the status of their country, and on ambitions of its political elites.” Scholars have published important work promoting approaches that are global, pluralist, and outside the traditional Western canon (Alker and Biersteker 1984; Said 1993; Hoffmann 1995; Harding 1998; Oren 2002; Inayatullah and Blaney 2004; Jones 2006; Tsygankov and Tsygankov 2007; Hobson 2012; Tickner and Blaney 2012; Hagmann and Biersteker 2014; Kristensen 2015; Turton 2015; Vitalis 2015; Acharya and Buzan 2017; Cheng and Brettle 2019; Levin and Trager 2019). Even some of those committed to rationalist assumptions and positivist analysis find that American dominance in the field tends to create “blind spots” in international relations, thereby negatively affecting IR scholarship (Colgan 2019). In parallel with the growing interest in Western IR biases, IR theorists are increasingly interested in problems of religion, civilization, civilizational identity, and their impact on the formation of different worldviews (Hall and Jackson 2007; Katzenstein 2009; Katzenstein 2012; Petito 2016; Pabst 2018; Bettiza et al 2019; Coker 2019).

Within the pluralist tradition in IR theory, there is a rise of national approaches. In the increasingly post-Western world, scholars across the world are more actively drawing on indigenous intellectual traditions of their own countries and cultures. In China, a number of scholars have advocated for a dialogue with Western IR based on a greater understanding of local cultural traditions and the interests of non-Western nations (Eun 2018; Shih and Hwang 2019). They have also called to overcome the binaries of self and others by imagining relational world orders and developing theories of inter-related practices (Kavalski 2018; Shih et al. 2019). In India, scholars have proposed to move past the constraining British colonial legacy and build on India's own rich intellectual history (Chagas-Bastos, Leite, and Maximo 2019). In the Muslim world, there has been a critique of non-Western attempts to engage in manufacturing exceptionalist discourses and a proposal to draw on Sufism for constructing a non-derivative and non-exceptionalist Global IR theory (Shahi 2019).² Russian scholars have also begun building on national indigenous theorizing in developing the discipline of international studies (Tsygankov 2017; Kaczmarska 2020; Tsygankov and Tsygankov 2021).

The field of international relations that has been gradually emerging from these new efforts is considerably more diverse and sensitive to multiple traditions and voices from “peripheral”/non-Western worlds. In response to global changes including the rise of non-Western great powers and ethnonationalism, there is a growing need to understand the phenomenon of cultural diversity in international relations and the effects that it has on IR theory ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 State Power in International Relations
• 3 Derzhava: Foundations of Russian Power
• 4 Global Balancers
• 5 Realist Westernizers
• 6 Eurasian Regionalists
• 7 Russian Realists and Contemporary Global Transition
• 8 Domestic Critics
• 9 Conclusion
• Index