No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Introduction by guest editor: Russia's narrative resources
... lusta asettuu venäläisessä poliittisessa keskustelussa osaksi argumentteja, joissa Venäjä nähdään erilliseksi muusta Euroopasta3 INFORMAATIOSODANKÄYNTI PÄÄMÄÄRÄNÄja "länsimaisesta sivilisaatiosta". Tämä vastakkainasettelu on jatkumoa kylmän sodan ajan ideologiselle vastakkainasettelulle, ja se tukee myös venäläistä etupiiriajattelua Itä-Euroopassa.(Joenniemi 2008;Pynnöniemi & Jokela 2020.) ...
This report analyses Russian terminology related to information warfare from the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in Eastern Ukraine 2014 until the end of 2023. The report is based on articles published on information warfare in two prominent Russian periodicals of military sciences, Vestnik Akademii voennykh nauk and Voennaia mysl’. Terminology is organised by the dictionary of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which distinguishes information as a goal, resource, and means. As a result, the terminology was found to be extensive and developing giving the Russian government political latitude. Russian perspective on information warfare is holistic, and several terms of Anglo-Saxon origin are used to describe distinctive Russian warfare concepts. Information warfare is seen as a part of a civilisational struggle between Russia and the so-called collective West, in which the intensity and manifestations of aggression vary. Russian understanding of information warfare doesn’t differentiate between wartime and peace. After launching the full-scale invasion and war of aggression against Ukraine, Russia has shifted to a time where facts are secondary. At the same time, primary influential interests are linked to an individual’s information processing, emotions and decision-making, which are being influenced using information warfare. Russia aims to saturate information space with information which serves Russia’s strategic goals in the long run. From February 2022 onwards, Russian political narratives have infiltrated academia and research, which portrays the totalitarianism of Russian society. Tässä raportissa selvitetään venäläistä informaatiosodankäynnin termistöä Krimin valtauksen ja Itä-Ukrainan sodan alkamisesta vuoteen 2023 asti. Raportti perustuu kahden merkittävimmän venäläisen sotatieteellisen julkaisun, Vestnik Akademi Voennyh Naukin ja Vojennaja Myslin informaatiosodankäyntiä käsittelevien, vuosien 2014 ja 2023 välillä julkaistujen artikkeleiden analyysiin. Termistö on jaoteltu raportissa Venäjän asevoimien sanakirjan mukaisesti informaatiosodankäynnin päämääriin, resursseihin ja keinoihin. Termistön todetaan olevan laaja ja alati kehittyvä kokonaisuus, mikä antaa Venäjän valtionjohdolle poliittista liikkumavaraa, jota se on hyödyntänyt muun muassa Ukrainassa keväästä 2022 alkaen. Venäläinen näkemys informaatiosodankäynnistä on holistinen, ja useat anglosaksista alkuperää olevat termit on omaksuttu kuvaamaan vuosisatoja vanhoja venäläisiä konsepteja sodankäynnistä. Informaatiosodankäynnin todetaan olevan osa Venäjän ja niin kutsutun kollektiivisen lännen välistä sivilisaatiollista kamppailua, jonka intensiteetti ja ilmenemismuodot vaihtelevat. Venäjä ei tee eroa sodan ja rauhan välille. Venäjän vuonna 2022 käynnistämän hyökkäyssodan jälkeen esille on noussut siirtyminen eräänlaiseen totuuden jälkeiseen aikaan, jossa faktat ovat toissijaisia, ja etusijalla ovat yksilön tiedon prosessointiin, tunteisiin ja päätöksentekoon liittyvät seikat, joihin informaatiosodankäynnillä vaikutetaan. Olennaisinta tässä informaatiosodankäynnin vaiheessa on informaatiotilan saturointi sellaisilla sisällöillä, jotka palvelevat Venäjän strategisia päämääriä pitkällä aikavälillä. Keväästä 2022 alkaen Venäjän johdon poliittinen retoriikka on siirtynyt osaksi tutkimusjulkaisuja, mikä kuvaa laajempaa venäläisen yhteiskunnan siirtymistä totalitarismiin.
... However, Russia's claims to a great power status suffer from the delegitimization of the very discourse of great powers in contemporary international relations, 34 while its attempts at the utilization of the globalist humanitarianÁinterventionist discourse are weakened by the lack of credibility due to the gap between the liberal foundations of this discourse and the increasingly illiberal character of the Russian political regime. 35 However, the problem is not exhausted by the negative image of Russia worldwide that could be addressed by the hordes of 'political technologists' that occupy the political space left vacant since the late 1990s. What contemporary Russia lacks is not merely narrative and symbolic resources that it could draw on in enhancing its reputation, but a more fundamental sense of historical orientation, which conditions the very emergence of nomos in a constitutive 'act of legitimacy.' ...
This paper addresses the 2008 Russian–Georgian conflict in the context of the post-Soviet spatial order, approached in terms of Carl Schmitt's theory of nomos and Giorgio Agamben's theory of the state of exception. The ‘five-day war’ was the first instance of the violation by Russia of the integrity of the post-Soviet spatial order established in the Belovezha treaties of December 1991. While from the beginning of the postcommunist period Russia functioned as the restraining force in the post-Soviet realm, the 2008 war has made further recourse to this function impossible, plunging the post-Soviet space into the condition of anomie, or the state of exception. This paper interprets this disruptive policy in the post-Soviet space as the continuation of the domestic political process of the ‘management of anomie,’ which has characterized the entire postcommunist period. In the conclusion, we address the implications of the transformation of the international order into the ethos of anomie for rethinking the ethical dimension of global politics.
This report examines the terminology of Russian information warfare from the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in Eastern Ukraine until 2023. The report is based on the analysis of articles on information warfare published between 2014 and 2023 in two of the most prominent Russian journals on military science, Vestnik Akademi Voennyh Nauk and Voennaya Mysl. The terminology is categorised in the report in line with the Russian Armed Forces Dictionary into information warfare objectives, resources and means. The terminology was found to be extensive and constantly evolving, providing the Russian government with political latitude, which it has made use of, for example, in Ukraine since spring 2022. The Russian perspective on information warfare is holistic, and several terms of Anglo-Saxon origin have been adopted to refer to centuries-old Russian warfare concepts. Information warfare is seen as part of a civilisational struggle between Russia and the collective West, which varies in intensity and manifestations. Russia makes no distinction between war and peace. After the war of aggression launched by Russia in 2022, a shift to a kind of post-truth era has emerged, where facts are of secondary importance and the focus is on elements related to an individual's information processing, emotions and decision-making, which are subject to the influence of information warfare. In this phase of information warfare, it is crucial to saturate the information space with content that serves Russia's strategic objectives in the long run. As of spring 2022, the political rhetoric of the Russian regime has been integrated into research publications, reflecting a broader shift in Russian society towards totalitarianism.showless
Once considered a bunch of “small islands in a far sea” by outside powers, the South Pacific now looms increasingly large on the global geopolitical landscape, attracting the strategic attention of an array of great powers. This has prompted many scholars and commentators to focus on the rise of great power rivalry in the region. Yet, with few exceptions, the existing literature has paid little attention to how the regional dynamics are framed by the dominant narrative of great power politics in the first place and how as a result it has failed to adequately consider alternative voices, concerns and narratives from within the region. This Special Issue aims to tentatively address this neglect by questioning the unreflective narration of regional power dynamics as mere “great power politics” and by highlighting the competing narratives about this region and their policy implications for conducting relations between the South Pacific and “outside powers”. In doing so, it seeks to provide a new critical and self-reflective angle for the debate on the South Pacific. This article first examines the extent to which “great power politics” reflects the reality of the power dynamics in the South Pacific. It then explains why it is important to focus on the theme of narratives and to understand their socially constitutive role in producing knowledge and shaping reality. The third section briefly introduces the five articles in this Issue and outlines their contributions.
Drawing on the empirical case of the Russian-Georgian war of 2008, the book explores the theoretical underpinnings of the idea of 'great power management' first articulated within the English School of International Relations. The contributors to the volume approach this idea from a variety of theoretical perspectives, ranging from policy-analysis to critical theory, but all of them are addressing the same question: What does the Russian-Georgian war of 2008 tell us about great power management as an institution of international society?.
Focusing on relations between NATO and Russia surrounding the Alliance's decision to enlarge, this paper develops a theory of symbolic power that highlights the relationship between identities, narrative structures, institutions, and legitimate action in the construction of security policy. We demonstrate that such a theory provides a significant contribution to analysing the role of NATO in post-Cold War security, to understanding the evolution of NATO-Russia relations, to assessing the 'promise' of international institutions as a means of structuring security relations, as well as highlighting forms of power at work in the social construction of 'security communities'.
An impartial but well educated observer analyzing international relations in contemporary Europe might conclude that Russia has been isolated from the new Europe after the dual enlargement of the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and that containment, first defined in 1947, has been fully achieved. Not only has the Soviet ‘empire’ dissolved into fifteen independent states, but the core state, the Russian Federation, is not a full member of either of the two permanent standing bodies of Europe — the EU and NATO — although it is a member of some all-Europe agreements. While the Russian Federation involves itself with NATO through the Russian-NATO Council (RNC),1 all former Warsaw Pact states except Russia are now full members of NATO. While Russia has a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with the EU,2 four former members of the Soviet-led Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) are now EU members, and two have achieved candidate status. Moreover, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the three Baltic republics of the former Soviet Union (FSU), independent since 1992, are full members of NATO and the EU. Thus dual enlargement has incorporated most of Russia’s key neighbours; Ukraine, the second largest nation of the FSU, is actively campaigning for EU and NATO membership.
The problem with traditional explanations of relations between states is that they focus on matters of interests and pay insufficient attention to matters of identities. This article seeks to improve on this situation by providing a formal discussion of the role of recognition. World politics is best described as a recognition game rather than as a prisoner's dilemma. To prove the applicability of this argument, an analysis is made of the relations that obtained between Soviet Russia and the West. From the perspective of the alternative, identity-based, model, a number of the most important events of the twentieth century are explained in quite a new fashion.
The article situates the Estonian discourse of national identity in the country's pursuits of EU and NATO membership. It first outlines the assumptions, concepts, and rhetorical devices through which the notion of national identity is constructed in discussions of international integration, and then highlights the policy ramifications of the identity discourse. The article concentrates on the three closely linked concepts - civilizational conflict, national territorial sovereignty, and security - that together constitute a core of identity debates in Estonia. While national identity in Estonia has hitherto been examined in the context of ethnic relations between the Estonian and the non-Estonian populations, this article analyzes identity debates, including issues of ethnicity, in the context of the country's pursuits of international integration. As identity is a central concept in Estonia's foreign, security, citizenship, and minority rights policies, the article exposes the claims that underpin these policies. The Estonian identity discourse contains strong arguments in favor of EU membership, yet several of its fundamental premises discursively construct this membership as harmful to Estonia. Both pro- and contra-EU arguments pivot particularly on claims about geopolitical and cultural threats. On the one hand, international integration is constructed as a security measure against the Russian threat. On the other hand, insofar as supranational institutions pressure Estonia to naturalize its Russian-speaking residents, who are construed as representatives of the Russian threat, international integration is also depicted as dangerous to Estonian identity. Estonian identity narratives thereby contradict governmental rhetoric of ethnic and European integration.
In this article I attempt to reshape the agent-structure debate in International Relations which has become increasingly confused and fruitless. I do so by first rejecting two things — (1) the agent-structure dichotomy, presupposed in the debate, in favour of the age-old classification of causative factors into mechanistic, volitional and coincidental ones; and (2) the explanation-understanding dichotomy, prevalent in the debate, in favour of the idea of `narrative intelligibilifying'. I also draw attention to narrative as a factor constitutive of agents and structures, and offer a modified version of structurationism, while rejecting a version of scientific realism sometimes associated with it. As to how one form of social structure moves towards another, I suggest that, at its most ambitious, this is a world-historical question, and that how the three causative factors are combined in addressing this question is as fascinating as it is vital for our self-understanding as human beings.
Christopher Bennett, Yugoslavia's
Bloody
Collapse, London, Hurst and Co., 1995
Book description: Socio-linguists and discourse analysts have long been aware of the fact that lan-guage does not simply describe a pre-existing reality but is rather the medium through which the social world is created and given meaning. While other branches of learning have been slow to take this on board, there is nevertheless a growing awareness of the importance of discourse in the creation of identities and the legitimisation of social structures and moral and political hierarchies. Discursive Constructions of Identity in European Politics brings together specialists from critical discourse analysis and critical approaches to communications, history, literature, media, sociology, politics and International Relations to discuss the discursive construction of identities and analyse how specific identity discourses condition and constrain knowledge and action with regard to various socio-political issues in Europe.
Introduction: Russian Identity and Foreign Policy After the Cold War
- Ted Hopf
Europe and the Boundaries of Russian Political Community
- Viatcheslav Morozov
Encompassing Russia - North or East of Central?
- Iver B Neumann
- IverB Neumann
Russia and the Idea of Europe: A Study in Identity and International Relations
- Iver B Neumann
- IverB Neumann