RE-IMAGINING WESTPHALIA: IDENTITY IN IR AND THE DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF THE RUSSIAN STATE Stefanie Ortmann A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (International Relations) London School of Economics and Political Science 2007 Supervisor: Prof. Margot Light UMI Number: U615521 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615521 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 L <377A* r % s?*- i I declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Stefanie Ortmann 20 September 2007 2 ABSTRACT OF THESIS Re-imagining Westphalia: Identity in IR and the discursive construction of the Russian state This thesis examines assumptions about state and identity in constructivist IR theory and the analysis of Russian foreign policy through the looking glass of Russian representations of “state identity” - representations of the Russian state as “Russia” - in the political discourse of the Russian elite since the end of the Soviet Union. Drawing on empirical research into the discursive representation of the new Russian state, it shows that categories of statehood and identity are more variable in meaning and indeed more ambiguous than allowed for by current dominant conceptions of state identity in IR, which, revolve around the categories of the Westphalian system. This becomes evident when studying Russia - a country which is at the same time outsider and insider, a constitutive part of the Westphalian system, defining the state in strongly Westphalian terms, and yet excluded from the West. In the case of Russia, instead of the clear-cut categories and binary distinctions of the Westphalian system there emerges a conceptual field in which inside and outside, identity and difference are inherently ambiguous and diffuse. It is argued that constructivist assumptions about identity face a problem of the relationship between theory and substantive research, insofar as theoretical commitments may obscure actual representations of identity in Russia, neglecting where and why categories of identity are actually produced, and equating categories of identity with identifications. They also face a normative problem, given that IR constructivism reinforces a problematic account of subjectivity inherent in the Westphalian narrative and is in danger of reifying a binary choice between identity and difference as the only possible relationship between the West and the non- Westem world. The thesis develops a conceptualization of identity drawing on Gadamerian hermeneutics and a framework for empirical research based on conceptual history that allows for an investigation of the context-dependent meaning of categories of statehood and identity and can go some way to escaping the logic of binary oppositions that has characterized conceptions of identity in IR. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...............................................................................................8 NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND CITATION................................................... 10 GLOSSARY OF RUSSIAN TERMS.............................................. .11 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.......................................................................................... 14 I. INTRODUCTION 1. Scope and significance of the thesis........................................................16 2. Research process.......................................................................................22 3. Chapter summaries....................................................................................30 II. IDENTITY, IR AND THE WESTPHALIAN NARRATIVE 1. Introduction.............................................................................................. 32 2. Westphalia and identity............................................................................34 3. “Moderate constructivism” in IR and the concept of identity.............. 39 3.1. Moderate constructivism and “state identity” in................. IR 40 3.2. Wendt and state personhood...................................................... 45 3.3. The reconstitution of identity as sameness............................... 48 4. Identity and state in alternative conceptions in IR - narrative and post-structuralist approaches.......................................................... 52 4.1. States as narrative selves............................................................. 53 4.2. Poststructuralist readings of identity in IR and the Westphalian narrative................................................................................................... 55 5. The Westphalian narrative in analyses of Russian foreign policy and identity..................................................................................................... 61 6. Conclusion: the Westphalian narrative and IR’s “fetishism of abstraction”.............................................................................................. 67 III. BEYOND WESTPHALIA? “STATE IDENTITY” AND THE RUSSIAN STATE 1. Introduction................................................................................................71 2. Post-Soviet Russian “state identity”........................................................73 3. Hermeneutics and the study of Russia’s “state identity”....................... 77 3.1. The cultural turn and hermeneutics.................................. in IR 81 3.2 Ambiguities of meaning, understanding and empirical research........................................................................................81 3.3. Identity in philosophical hermeneutics: recognition and the case of Russia.............................................................................. 85 4. “State identity” in post-Soviet Russia....................................................92 4.1. Collective identity and the state in Russia: a reconceptualization.....................................................................92 4.2. The “state effect” in post-Soviet Russia.................................... 97 5. Researching Russian “state identity” as foundational political concepts: Conceptual history and foundational concepts of Russian statehood................................................................................................101 6. Conclusion.............................................................................................. 105 IV. STATE AND IDENTITY IN RUSSIAN HISTORY 1. Introduction: historical determinism and conceptual history............. 107 2. Context and continuation of Russian statehood...................................110 3. The genealogy of Russian statehood:gosudarstvo, derzhava............ 115 3.1. Tsarist Russia..............................................................................115 3.2. The Soviet Union................................................................... ...121 4. Democracy - demokratiia, narodovlastie............................................ 123 5. The semantic fields of Russian identity and the state......................... 127 6. Conclusion: Russia’s post-Soviet “identity crisis” and representations of statehood...........................................................134 V. SPACE AND POWER AS ESSENTIALLY CONTESTED CONCEPTS - THE EMERGENCE OF THE RUSSIAN STATE IN PUBLIC POLITICAL DISCOURSE, 1991/92 1. Introduction.............................................................................................137 2. Sovereignty, the disentangling of “Russia” and the territorialisation of the Russian state...................................................139 3. “Statehood in crisis” and overlapping domestic and external spaces...............................................................................144 3.1. Ambiguities of domestic and external space..........................145 5 3.2. “Statehood in crisis” and essentially contested concepts 1992...........................................................146 4. Democracy andDerzhava as essentially contested concepts in 1992 ........................................................................................................ 155 4.1. Democracy and Great Power as foundational concepts of the state in public discourse of the political elite...................... ...155 4.2. “Traditionalist” concepts of Russia as Great Power................160 4.3. The liberal alternative - Russia as democratic Great Power......................................................................................... 163 5. Conclusion...............................................................................................170 VI. AMBIGUITIES OF SPACE - THE WEST, EUROPE AND RUSSIAN TERRITORIALITY 1. Introduction............................................................................................ 173 2. The ambiguity of imagined spaces: the West and Europe................. 175 3. Russian scripts: the West, Inclusion, Exclusion.................................. 179 3.1. Kosovo: hostile West and sovereignty.....................................179