Russia's European discourse: Self–other relations

Abstract

This thesis is focused on the Self/Other nexus in Russia’s European discourse. The narrative of Russia as “a part of the European family” has not been seriously challenged in Russian political discourse since the late 1980s, when the idea of the “Common European Home” was introduced and espoused. Ever since, Russian leaders have been referring to Russia’s historical and cultural affinities with the European milieu and its alleged congruity with European political logic. Russia’s self-distancing from Europe has become evident with the conservative and civilizational turn that solidified itself in Russian political discourse circa 2011-2012. This thesis seeks to find out how the Self/Other nexus in Russia’s official political discourse on EU-Russia relations is being constructed. The analysis is structured along several questions: by what means and to what end the EU and Russia recourse to Othering; how many strategies of Othering are possible; whether it is possible to deal with the ideas of “sameness” and “otherness” without falling into negative dynamics; how certain articulations reproduce narratives of Russia’s distinct Self in its European discourse; what kind of narrative appears to replace the narrative of Russia’s alleged belongingness to the European milieu. The study is based on combination of constructivist and poststructuralist premises. Russia and the EU are approached from the point of view of their conflictual intersubjectivity, which refers to EU-Russia relations as interactions of two ontologically dislocated and unfixed subjects dependent on the figure of a symbolic Other. Discourses are approached as not only products of actions, but as actions themselves or as least shaping which actions are within the possible.

This thesis is focused on the Self/Other nexus in Russia’s European discourse. The narrative of Russia as “a part of the European family” has not been seriously challenged in Russian political discourse since the late 1980s, when the idea of the “Common European Home” was introduced and espoused. Ever since, Russian leaders have been referring to Russia’s historical and cultural affinities with the European milieu and its alleged congruity with European political logic. Russia’s self-distancing from Europe has become evident with the conservative and civilizational turn that solidified itself in Russian political discourse circa 2011-2012. This thesis seeks to find out how the Self/Other nexus in Russia’s official political discourse on EU-Russia relations is being constructed. The analysis is structured along several questions: by what means and to what end the EU and Russia recourse to Othering; how many strategies of Othering are possible; whether it is possible to deal with the ideas of “sameness” and “otherness” without falling into negative dynamics; how certain articulations reproduce narratives of Russia’s distinct Self in its European discourse; what kind of narrative appears to replace the narrative of Russia’s alleged belongingness to the European milieu. The study is based on combination of constructivist and poststructuralist premises. Russia and the EU are approached from the point of view of their conflictual intersubjectivity, which refers to EU-Russia relations as interactions of two ontologically dislocated and unfixed subjects dependent on the figure of a symbolic Other. Discourses are approached as not only products of actions, but as actions themselves or as least shaping which actions are within the possible.