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Nuremberg/Hamburg, August 2015

Power-status figurations in the security relations between Russia and the

West: From Western domination to Russian emancipation

Paper prepared for the ECPR General Conference, 26-29 August 2015 in

Montreal/Canada

by Simon Koschut and Regina Heller

WORK IN PROGRESS!

Abstract

On the part of Western politicians, there is frequently put forward the idea that the West has granted Russia too

much status in the past 20 years. In Moscow, on the contrary, the dominant view has been and still is that ever

since the end of the Cold War the West has not granted Russia the status it actually deserves. If we look at the

emotional dispositions of the relationship on both sides, we can identify a situation in which the West tries to

dominate the power-status figuration and Russia rejecting these attempts of social domination through anger and

resentment, and since most recently through the construction of alternative and competing dominant narratives

of pride. This power-status figuration creates and constantly reproduces a divide, an inside-outside arrangement

hampering the evolvement of a shared identity and the creation of a security community. The underlying inside-

outside arrangement is particularly obvious in post-Cold War NATO-Russia security relations.

Author Contacts:

Dr. Simon Koschut

University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

Findelgasse 7-9 90402 Nürnberg Germany Tel.: +49 (0)911-5302-677 Fax: +49 (0)911-5302 696 Email: simon.koschut@fau.de

Dr. Regina Heller

Substitute Professor Department of International Relations Helmut-Schmidt-Universität / University of the German Armed Forces Holstenhofweg 84 22043 Hamburg Germany T +49(0)40/6541-2726 E hellerr@hsu-hh.de

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1. Introduction

The study of emotions in International Relations (IR) continues to be a puzzle to many. On

the one hand, most scholars from various theoretical backgrounds explicitly acknowledge its

presence in world politics.1 On the other hand, theoretical and empirical research about the

effects of particular emotions in specific social circumstances remains marginal. In other

words, while we seem to know that emotions are ‘out there’ we still have only relatively little

understanding of what emotions actually ‘do’. This puzzle serves as the starting point for this

study. Based on a Constructivist approach, we investigate the socio-emotional underpinnings

of status and identity in the social construction of power structures in the NATO-Russia

security relations. Studying the nexus between identity and emotions is certainly not a novel

enterprise. In fact, a good number of scholars have investigated the emotional character of

social identities in world politics.2

1 See e.g. Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), 34; Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948), 125; Robert O. Keohane, ‘Empathy and International Regimes’, in Beyond Self-interest, ed Jane J. Mansbridge (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1990): 227-236, 227; Andrew Linklater, The Problem of Harm in World Politics. Theoretical Investigations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 194; Maja Zehfuss, Constructivism in International Relations: The Politics of Reality. (Cambridge University Press, 2002), 26; Jenny Edkins, Trauma and the Memory of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Khaled Fattah and Karin M. Fierke, ‘A Clash of Emotions: The Politics of Humiliation and Political Violence in the Middle East’, European Journal of International Relations 15, no.1 (2009): 67-93; Janice Bially Mattern, ‘A Practice Theory of Emotion for International Relations’, in International Practices, eds Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011): 63-86; Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics and Political Change’, International Organization 52, no.4 (1998): 887-917, 916; Friedrich V. Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 123.

What this paper adds to this promising research strand is an

attempt to conceptually link emotions and identity to status and power. It is argued that

power, status, identity, and emotions are interrelated concepts: emotions shape identities

providing agents with a self-definition and evaluative judgment about the world. Identities are

hardly fixed but are tied to status difference. Status constitutes an enacted form of social

power exercised through emotions.

2 See for example Andrew Ross, ‘Coming in from the Cold: Constructivism and Emotions’, European Journal of International Relations 12, no.2 (2006): 197-222; Roland Bleiker and Emma Hutchison, ‘Fear No More. Emotions and World Politics’, Review of International Studies 34, (2008): 115-135; Emma Hutchison, ‘Trauma and the Politics of Emotion: Constituting Identity, Security and Community After the Bali Bombing’, International Relations 24, no.1 (2010): 65-86; Fattah and Fierke, ‘A Clash of Emotions’; Karin M. Fierke Political Self Sacrifice: Agency, Body and Emotion in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Todd Hall, ‘Sympathetic States: Explaining the Russian and Chinese Responses to September 11’, Political Science Quarterly 127, no.3 (2012): 369-400; Ty Solomon, ‘”I wasn’t angry, because I couldn’t believe it was happening”: Affect and discourse in response to 9/11’, Review of International Studies 38 (2012): 907-928; Simon Koschut, ‘Emotional (Security) Communities. The Significance of Emotion Norms in Inter-allied Conflict Management’, Review of International Studies 40 (2014): 533-558.

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2. Theoretical Considerations: Conceptualizing the emotional underpinnings of power-

status figuration in international relations

While the emotional underpinnings of identity and status in world politics has certainly not

been denied by Constructivism from an ontological standpoint, it has received surprisingly

little attention in terms of theoretical conceptualization. Many Constructivist accounts3

emphasize the logical connection between power and identity. Yet, they seem to either take

for granted or neglect to give equal attention to its emotional dimension. To be fair,

Constructivists who study power-identity dynamics certainly do not turn a blind eye to the

emotions. Bially Mattern, for example, explicitly states that social identity includes emotional

bonds.4 Risse and Sikkink’s persuasive argument that “(n)orm violating states are denounced

as pariah states which do not belong to the community of civilized nations” also implies that

social identity involves an emotional appraisal of moral arguments.5 Adler-Nissen has

recently provided a convincing theoretical argument about how states discursively cope with

stigmatization employing labeling, stereotyping, separation, and discrimination. What these

studies have in common is that they center on the discursive construction of power based on

socio-linguistic identity.6 What can be distilled from this, admittedly abbreviated overview7

3 While Constructivism includes a wide variety of different approaches, all tend to share the conception of giving equal importance to both non-material and material structures, the understanding that non-material structures can actually shape actors’ preferences and ultimately, their actions, and finally, the view that agents and structures are mutually constitutive (see Richard Price and Christian Reus-Smit, ‘Dangerous Liaisons? Critical International Theory and Constructivism’, European Journal of International Relations 4, no.3 (1998): 259-294, 266).

,

is that even though these scholars present convincing accounts of the discursive nature of

power-identity dynamics in world politics they arguably either underestimate or take for

granted the emotional underpinnings of such power-identity dynamics.

4 Janice Bially Mattern, Ordering International Politics. Identity, Crisis, and Representational Force (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005), 32.

5 Thomas Risse and Kathryn Sikkink, ‘The Socialization of International Human Rights Norms into Domestic Practices: Introduction’, in The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change, eds Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

6 Rebecca Adler-Nissen, ‘Stigma Management in International Relations: Transgressive Identities, Norms, and Order in International Society’, International Organization 68, no.1 (2014): 143-176.

7 See also Jutta Weldes and Diana Saco, ‘Making State Action Possible: The United States and the Discursive Construction of “The Cuban Problem”, 1960-1994’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 25, no. 2 (1996): 361-98; Eva Herschinger, ‘“Hell Is the Other”: Conceptualising Hegemony and Identity through Discourse Theory’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 41, no. 1 (2012): 65-90; Lene Hansen, Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War (London: Routledge, 2006); Charlotte Epstein, The Power of Words in International Relations: Birth of an Anti-Whaling Discourse (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008).

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The argument in this paper, on the contrary, revolves around conceptions of socio-

emotional identity in which the collective experience and expression of particular emotions

shapes power structures and social hierarchies. Groups in international politics exercise social

power (the authority to attribute social status) based on emotions of pride and resentment

whereas groups that experience shame or fear do not exercise social power. While it is true

that such emotions can be expressed through discourse, we argue that social identity is not

only represented by language but also by the emotions communicated through language. In

this sense, this paper views power structures, status difference, and group identity not as

socio-linguistic but instead as socio-emotional constructs. In doing so, the article advances the

Constructivist literature on power-identity dynamics by highlighting its emotional

underpinnings thus filling an important gap. Moreover, understanding the conceptual link

between power, status, identity, and emotions furthers our knowledge about what emotions

actually do at the international level, in general, and in the NATO-Russian case, in particular.

Finally, investigating the social effects of emotions in the constitution of power structures and

group identities at the international level may allow emotion research to step out of the closet

of academic specialization by showing how emotions are central to some of the most

important questions in IR: social order and conformity, authority and governance, and

structural change.

The paper is divided into four parts. First, we conceptualize power, status, identity,

and emotions as social categories. Second, we show how emotions carry knowledge about the

world thus shaping power structures, status difference and identity construction at the

collective level. In the third section, we further refine this argument by outlining a set of

specific emotion categories involved in the nexus between power, status, identity, and the

emotions and explain how each (de-)constructs hierarchical relationships. Finally, we

illustrate the theoretical considerations by offering an empirical window into the emotion-

based power figurations in NATO-Russian security relations. The paper closes with some

tentative concluding remarks.

a) Power, status, identity, and emotions

The purpose of this section is to fill these conceptual containers with meaning as a reference

guide for the subsequent sections. Constructivist accounts (despite their diversity8

8 While Constructivism includes a wide variety of different approaches, all tend to share the conception of giving equal importance to both non-material and material structures, the understanding that non-material

) typically

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stress the social basis of power thus granting concepts like status and identity a more

prominent position. Agents are not viewed as utility maximizers but instead tend to act

according to what is regarded as appropriate behavior. International norms and rules are thus

viewed as constitutive to the status and identity of participating states involving social

power.9 Social power describes the degree of authority that an individual or group has among

its peers and within the social system as a whole. As such, social power plays an important

role in shaping international relations. Actors who possess social power hold the capacity to

ascribe social status and thus shape the identity of others. Status difference designates the

self-identity of a group as socially superior or inferior within a social setting. If a group

perceives another group as socially superior (granting them a higher status) the latter group

will exercise social power over the former group, which lacks such power. Social power is

exercised via knowledge and learning: social hierarchies and international rule based

frameworks socialize state identities and define their role within the international system.10

Social identity is thus understood here as an “internalized positional designation” tied to

status within a particular social structure.11

Social power plays an important role in the discursive construction of status and

identity in international politics. Bially Mattern, for example, argues that NATO member

states used language power (“representational force”) to repair or recreate a broken-down

identity during crisis. By representational force, Bially Mattern means “a forceful but non-

physical form of power exercised through language” that “leaves the victim with an unsavory

Social status defines the position or rank of an

individual or group within a social system based on particular attributes and categories.

Identities are tied to status difference. A low social status is indicated by particular identities

expressing inferiority such as ‘colony’, ‘occupied territory’ or ‘periphery’ whereas a high

social status involves particular identities expressing superiority such as ‘Great power’,

‘Empire’ or ‘leading nation’.

structures can actually shape actors’ preferences and ultimately, their actions, and finally, the view that agents and structures are mutually constitutive (Reus-Smit and Price, 1998: 266).

9 Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996); Peter J. Katzenstein (ed), The Culture of National Security (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1996); Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

10 Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics; Ted Hopf, ‘The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory’, International Security 23, no.1 (1998), 171-200; Alastair Iain Johnston, ‘Treating International Institutions as Social Environments’, International Studies Quarterly 45, no.4 (2001): 487-515.

11 Sheldon Stryker, The Interplay of Affect and Identity: Exploring the Relationships of Social Structure, Social Interaction, Self, and Emotion, Paper presented at the American Sociological Association (Chicago, IL: 1987), 13.

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‘non-choice’ (…) between suffering and compliance (…) in order to save his subjectivity”.12

Moral consciousness-raising by the international human rights community often involves a process of

‘shaming’. Norm violating states are denounced as pariah states which do not belong to the community

of civilized nations (…). Shaming then constructs categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’, that is, in-groups and

out-groups, thus reaffirming particular state identities. Some repressive governments (…) feel deeply

offended because they want to belong to the ‘civilized community’ of states. In other words, shaming

then implies a process of persuasion since it convinces leaders that their behavior is inconsistent with an

identity to which they aspire.

There is a logical connection to emotions in Bially Mattern’s argument: If power can inflict

social “suffering” (the loss of social status) upon agents via language such discursive identity

constructions also must have an affective dimension. For, if a “victim” can be forced to

maintain a particular identity through non-physical power, it must feel the negative social

implications of such power. As argued above, even though Constructivist accounts emphasize

the logical connection between power, status, emotion and identity they take this connection

for granted and neglect to give equal attention to the affective dimension of such power-

identity dynamics. A glance at other Constructivist literature on compliance and social

conformity confirms this observation:

13

As in the case of Bially Mattern, if we accept this argument, international agents have

to be somehow capable to experience “shame” in order to be persuaded or forced into

compliance. Evidently, identity is tied to social status while status attribution involves the

exercise of social power and, arguably, an affective dimension that remains underdeveloped.

Hence, like power, status, and identity, emotions form a social category in international

politics that demands further conceptualization.

Moving from the concept of power to emotions, it is hard to contest the argument that

emotions are also a social phenomenon. Since the emotion categories of moral appraisal are

different in each society, collective emotions may be regarded as social effects in the sense

that they are rooted in socio-cultural difference.14

12 Bially Mattern, Ordering International Politics, 95-96.

For example, the death of nearly 3,000

people on September 11, 2001 invoked grief and sorrow among most Americans while

13 Thomas Risse and Stephen C. Ropp, ‘Introduction and Overview’, in The Persistent Power of Human Rights, eds Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013): 3-25, 15.

14 It should be pointed out that emotions are contingent on culture, see: Peter N. Stearns and Carol Z. Stearns, ‘Emotionology: Clarifying the History of Emotions and Emotional Standards’, American Historical Review 90, no.4 (1985): 813-836; Theodore D. Kemper, A Social Interactional Theory of Emotions (New York, NY: John Wiley, 1978); Robert Thamm, ‘Toward a Universal Power and Status Theory of Emotion’, Advances in Group Processes 21, (2004): 189-222.

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members of al Qaida and their sympathizers rejoiced and probably felt sincere joy and

satisfaction.15 The experience of particular emotions in specific social situations may in turn

motivate collective behavior.16

Emotions situate actors in their relations with others. Actors are moved in their interactions with others

by their emotions, and their emotions lead them to evaluate and change the course of their conduct in

the relationships and situations they face. It is through their emotions that actors are engaged by others

and through their emotions that they alter their relations with them.

For example, the expression of joy and satisfaction by al

Qaida members led to moral outrage and feelings of resentment in American society and a

desire for vengeance and retaliation in order to reassert human dignity and “to set things

right” (Moore 1978, 17). It is not argued here that emotions necessarily determine a particular

course of action but they do leave a noticeable impression on social structure. As Barbalet

notes:

17

It is the discernable social effects of particular emotions underlying power structures,

status difference, and group identity in international politics that will be of further interest

here.

In order to produce social effects emotions must have a cognitive dimension. This

paper thus views emotions as moral judgments that represent an intellectual appraisal of past

experience and future expectations.18 To say that emotions are ‘representational’ is not to

claim that emotions cannot also be physically experienced. Rather, our point stresses the

importance of the cognitive and epistemic character of emotions without denying their

phenomenological expression as bodily feelings.19

15 Theodore D. Kemper, ‘Predicting Emotions in Groups: Some Lessons from September 11’, in Emotions and Sociology, ed Jack M. Barbalet (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002): 53-68.

A Cognitivist position argues that

emotions are evaluative judgments that enable actors to participate in and engage with the

world thereby giving it meaning. In this sense, emotions are essentially concerned with

identity, status and power by shaping “our sense of power and impotence, or sense of

16 Jack M. Barbalet, Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure. A Macrosociological Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 9.

17 Barbalet, Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure, 133. 18 Robert C. Solomon, The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life (Cambridge: Hackett, 1993); Martha

C. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

19 In order to make this distinction clear, I will subsequently distinguish between emotions or emotional feelings (as representational moral judgments) and feelings or non-emotional feelings (as bodily expressions) (see Peter Goldie, The Emotions. A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

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uniqueness and identity, our sense of belonging and exclusion”.20 If we can accept this view

then emotions should, in principle, be able to impart knowledge about the world thus shaping

identity construction, status difference and power structures.21

b) Attributing status via emotions

In the next section, we will

further develop this argument by looking into how emotions function to reinforce hierarchical

relationships at the international level.

Why do we eat with forks? It is not based on a functional purpose because we could easily eat

with our hands. Neither does eating with forks enhance our physical survival or give us

significant material advantage. We simply use forks to avoid getting our fingers dirty because

dirty fingers are considered distasteful. This feeling of distaste is an emotional reaction based

on what Western society considers ‘uncivilized’ or ‘barbaric’.22

From this example, we learn that distaste is a cultural and emotion-based judgment

about proper behavior that is tied to a certain status and group identity. Certain forms of social

behavior are prohibited not because they are inefficient or threaten the survival of the group

but because they are emotionally regarded as offensive and disrespectful and thus threaten the

status and identity of a particular group. As Elias notes in his study of the French court

society:

(…) shame at offering such a spectacle, originally absent, and fear of arousing such associations are gradually

spread from the standard setting circles to larger circles by numerous authorities and institutions. However, once

such feelings are aroused and firmly established in society by means of rituals like that involving the fork, they

are constantly reproduced so long as the structure of human relations is not fundamentally altered.23

Established members of a group pass these standards on to new members. For

example, small children are told by their parents not to touch their food by invoking feelings

of shame in the child. Through such paradigm scenarios, the child experiences a strong

emotional feeling that is tied to a particular social behavior.

24 Its parents receive social

conformity by repeatedly invoking feelings of shame. Through this affective dialogue the

child assimilates to pre-formed emotion-based social identities and reproduces the status and

power hierarchy between parent and child.25

20 Solomon, The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life, 147.

In other words, by internalizing a certain

21 Ronald de Sousa, The Rationality of Emotion (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987). 22 Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell,

1939), 126. 23 Elias, The Civilizing Process, 128. 24 de Sousa, The Rationality of Emotion; Goldie, The Emotions, 28. 25 Elias, The Civilizing Process, 303.

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emotional feeling, inferior agents tend to follow a certain behavioral pattern in relation to

more established agents. These established agents exercise social power based on emotional

identification. Social power thus includes the ability of the power practitioners to arouse

certain feeling in others. By doing so, the established agent is able to project a certain type of

identity and status onto others by influencing the emotions as well as goals and intentions of

the socially inferior agent.26 In this power configuration, social conformity is based on the

charisma of the established agent. Inferior agents want to identify with the personal

characteristics and qualities of the established agent because they gain satisfaction from their

acceptance as a follower.27 To sum up, it is suggested that emotions enable agents to acquire

knowledge about the world and to engage in appropriate behavior thereby reinforcing identity

and status difference. I will subsequently use the term emotion-based or simply emotional

knowledge to refer to this phenomenon.28

Process sociology has confirmed how emotional knowledge forms part of power

asymmetries in which established groups secure the compliance of others in international

politics.

29 Established groups like the ‘Great Powers’ develop a superior image of themselves

that reflects their worldview and group charisma of being superior in relations to others.

Group charisma describes a group’s collective feeling of social superiority (prestige) based on

the perception among its members that this particular group possesses superior virtues.30

26 Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence (London: Verso, 2004); Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004).

As

such, group charisma forms an important part of the emotional underpinnings of social status

and collective identity. It is based on certain group-specific attributes such as racial, ethnic or

religious categories and can give rise to group-specific norms of appropriate behavior.

Members of the established group perceive themselves as morally ‘better’ whereas outsiders

or marginalized groups are viewed as inferior because they seem to lack these group specific

attributes and norms. Belonging to such a particular social group evokes a feeling of delight

27 John R. P. French, Jr. and Bertram H. Raven, ‘The Bases of Social Power’, in Studies in Social Power, ed D. Cartwright (Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, 1959): 150–167.

28 Ute Frevert, Emotions in History – Lost and Found (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2011). 29 Norbert Elias and John L. Scotson, The Established and the Outsiders: A Sociological Enquiry into

Community Problems (London: Frank Cass, 1965); Norbert Elias, Humana conditio (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985); Andrew Linklater, ‘Process sociology and international relations’, The Sociological Review 59, no.1 (2004): 48-64, Linklater, The Problem of Harm in World Politics.

30 Max Weber, Economy and Society: an Outline of Interpretative Sociology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1921).

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and satisfaction in participating in group activities as well as feelings of contempt and

disapproval toward outsiders.31

The interplay between identity based on group charisma as well as the particular

emotions associated with it, in turn, can give rise to status and power figurations between

established and marginalized groups. A figuration is understood here as the embodiment of a

specific set of emotion categories to enforce a certain mode of collective behavior.

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Building on these assumptions, it seems plausible to suggest that the attribution of

social power and status and the social construction of collective identities in international

politics may be shaped and reproduced through emotions. Emotions facilitate the

development and maintenance of status and identity in international politics because

emotional categories draw clear distinctions between insiders and outsiders forcing a certain

kind of undesirable identity upon the marginalized group through projective identification.

For

example, the social construction of an “Arian identity” in Nazi Germany was rooted in the

collective establishment and cognitive experience of ritualized and institutionalized emotional

feelings of pride and confidence in the German Herrenvolk (evident during the infamous

Nuremberg rallies) as well as collective feelings of contempt and disgust toward the Jewish

Other.

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These categories are invoked by using group-specific expressions, symbols, and analogies.

Such stigmatization emphasizes the incapability of a particular Other to conform with the

‘civilizational standards’ of the established group thereby confirming the former’s inferior

social status despite formally equal legal status. By internalizing misrecognition, the

marginalized group can then only take on the identity ascribed to it by the more powerful

established group.34 Emotions reinforce this process because what these marginalized groups

experience is a form of social suffering: a lack of collective agency to resist.35

This is not to say that marginalized groups are incapable of developing collective

identities and group charisma. However, given a history of discrimination and victimhood, the

particular emotions associated with and collectively experienced by these groups tend to be

31 Weber, Economy and Society. 32 Elias, The Civilizing Process, 262. 33 Farhad Dalal, Race, Colour and the Process of Racialization: New Perspectives from Group Analysis,

Psychoanalysis, and Sociology (New York, NY: Routledge, 2002). 34 Charles Taylor, Philosophical Arguments (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 225. 35 Thomas Gregory, ‘Potential Lives, Impossible Death’, International Feminist Journal of Politics 14, no.3

(2012): 327-347; Paul Hoggett, Politics, Identity, and Emotion (Boulder: Paradigm, 2009), 16.

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defined more in terms of humiliation and shame and less in terms of pride and confidence.36

Because of that, marginalized groups often simply lack the psychological means to

independently raise their status. Instead, they continue to be prone to the negative projections

of the established group.37 The acknowledgement of humiliation and shame among

marginalized groups can nevertheless turn into resentment and vengefulness leading to a

change in social status from collective subordination to empowerment. Such a change in

status entails a change in self-identity, for example, from collectively identifying as members

of a ‘colony’ to viewing each other as members of a sovereign nation-state. For this identity

transformation to occur, however, marginalized groups must first develop new solidarities

derived from the participation in social movements or the support from powerful outsiders

that stress the injustice of the status quo and, through collective acknowledgement, enable

marginalized groups to transform passive emotions like shame and humiliation into anger and

resentment to sustain active resistance against the established group.38 Vince, for example,

shows how Algerian post-colonial identity in anti-colonial movements was constructed

against France in religious and cultural terms based on particular emotion categories of pride

and confidence. Hence, in addition to stabilizing social hierarchies in international politics,

emotions may equally contribute to the assertion and realization of basic rights, the

development of new solidarities and identities, and the rise in a formerly marginalized group’s

social status and standing.39

To sum up, processes of emotional socialization undergirding status and identity form

an inseparable element of social power in international politics. In the next sections, we

outline two sets of particular emotion categories that seem to be most relevant to emotion-

based power-status figurations: one set of emotions that confirms and thus reinforces the

status gap between established and marginalized groups; and another set of emotions that

disconfirms status rank thus challenging the status quo.

36 Elizabeth V. Spelman, Fruits of Sorrow: Framing Our Attention to Suffering (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998); Paul Saurette, ‘You Dissin’ Me? Humiliation and Post 9/11 Global Politics’, Review of International Studies 32, no.3 (2006): 495-522.

37 John Bird and Simon Clarke, ‘Racism, Hatred, and Discrimination Through the Lens of Projective Identification’, Journal for the Psycho-Analysis of Culture and Society 4, no.2 (2000): 332-335; Michael J. Lovaglia, ‘Status, Emotion, and Structural Power’, in Status, Network, and Structure, eds Jacek Szmatka, John Skvoretz and Joseph Berger (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997): 159-178.

38 Fierke, Political Self Sacrifice; Erika Summers-Effler, ‘The Micro Potential for Social Change: Emotion, Consciousness, and Social Movement Formation’, Sociological Theory 20, no.1 (2002): 41-60, 41; Barbalet, Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure, 136.

39 Natalya Vince, ‘Transgressing Boundaries: Gender, Race, Religion, and “Françaises Musulmanes” during the Algerian War of Independence’, French Historical Studies 33, no.3 (2010): 445-474, 449.

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c) Status-confirming emotions: Pride and shame

As explained above, established groups maintain their high social status by reproducing a

particular self-image of social superiority vis-à-vis marginalized groups described earlier as

group charisma. This group charisma is based on the emotion of pride. Pride is an expression

of a group’s valued past as well as its confidence in the future.40 Pride thus confirms the

superior status of established groups. Established groups exercise social power over

marginalized groups by attributing lower social status. Marginalized groups internalize a

collective identity of social inferiority through emotional rigidity, stigmatization, and by

placing the contact of insiders with outsiders under a moral taboo.41 This collective identity of

social inferiority among members of the marginalized group is based on the emotion of

shame. Shame signals the presence of a moral trespass and self-blame. It indicates

dissatisfaction with one’s own impression in the eyes of others based on a negative

response.42

However, it is important to note that the pride-shame dualism is not neatly confined to

an insider-outsider distinction. It has already been pointed out above that pride-shame

dynamics also serve to maintain social conformity within an established group. Inside an

established group, members are not treated as approximate equals but are also woven together

in status/power figurations. The superior self-image of the established group is formed based

on the minority of its morally ‘best’ members (core group). This core group performs a norm

building function and exercises social power over non-conformers through emotional rigidity

and stigmatization.

Shame thus confirms the inferior social status of marginalized groups. In sum,

shame serves as an emotion category that confirms lower social status whereas pride confirms

higher social status.

43 Members can only participate in the established group by complying

with certain institutionalized emotional patterns of affect control.44

40 Randall Collins, ‘On the Microfoundations of Macrosociology’, American Journal of Sociology 86, no.5 (1981): 984-1014; Thomas J. Scheff, Bloody Revenge: Emotions, Nationalism, and War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994).

Members who do not

comply (for example by siding with or showing sympathy toward members of the

marginalized group) will risk losing their status as members of the established group. In

Imperial France, for example, the ‘standard of civilization’ as traditionally set by white upper

41 Elias and Scotson, The Established and the Outsiders, 8 and 12. 42 Scheff, Bloody Revenge; Rom Harré, ‘Embarrassment: a Conceptual Analysis’, in Shyness and

Embarassment: Perspectives from Social Psychology, ed Roy Crozier (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990): 181-204.

43 Elias and Scotson, The Established and the Outsiders, 13 and 42. 44 Koschut, ‘Emotional (Security) Communities’; Lucile Eznack, ‘Crises as Signals of Strength: The

Significance of Affect in Close Allies’ Relationships’, Security Studies 20, no.2 (2011): 238-265.

13

and middle-class elites while French white anti-imperialists (the non-conformers) were

associated with “betrayal” and “treason” and thus placed outside the established group.45

d) Status-disconfirming emotions: Fear and resentment

Emotion categories like pride and shame are rooted in a group’s ontological security.46

Ontological security is closely aligned with an actor’s social status and self-identity. Any

threat to an actor’s ontological security conflicts with that actor’s sense of belonging to a

particular international community and risks losing its subjectivity in the flow of world

politics. It is thus plausible to suggest that this should arouse a very strong emotional reaction.

As Cooley wrote almost a century ago: “A man cast out of his (…) secure place in the system

of the world feels like that of the child in the dark; just as impulsive, perhaps just as

purposeless and paralyzing”.47 Fear of losing social status and meanings may thus be

understood as another important emotion category in the power figuration between

established and marginalized groups. If an established group feels that it may lose its superior

social status to outsiders this may elicit a loss of confidence among its members about the

future.48 Fear based on a threat to a group’s ontological security usually promotes isolation,

suspicion, and a general undermining of trust in the world.49 More specifically, it can lead to a

denial of the rights of others in order to exclude them from gaining access to social resources

as well as a disproportionate display of pride or even arrogance to compensate for the loss of

confidence in oneself.50

Resentment, by contrast, uplifts members of the marginalized group. Resentment is

the emotional appraisal of an imbalanced or asymmetric power relationship and the ensuing

realization of an unjustified lower social status.

Fear thus disconfirms the superior status of an established group.

51

45 Leela Ghandi, Affective Communities: Anticolonial Thought, Fin-de-Siècle Radicalism, and the Politics of Friendship (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 2.

While shame invites subordination and the

denial of rights by the established group, resentment, on the contrary, empowers a

marginalized group to claim their basic rights and to correct the status gap in order to restore

one’s own self-regard and elevate social standing. For example, emotional feelings of

resentment among European societies under colonial rule towards the European imperial

46 Jennifer Mitzen, ‘Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma’, European Journal of International Relations 12, no.3 (2006): 341-370; Brent J. Steele, Ontological Security in International Relations (New York, NY: Routledge, 2008).

47 Charles H. Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order (New York, NY: Schocken Books, 1922), 290. 48 Barbalet, Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure, 161. 49 Joseph de Rivera, ‘Emotional Climate: Social Structure and Emotional Dynamics’, International Review of

Studies on Emotion 2 (1992): 199-218, 201 50 Elias, Humana conditio, 144. 51 Barbalet, Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure, 126.

14

powers motivated anti-colonial resistance and the construction of post-colonial identities.

Resentment thus disconfirms the inferior status of marginalized groups.

Based on this conception, it is possible to distill a set of hypotheses regarding the role

of emotions in shaping international social hierarchies. On a general level, confirmation and

disconfirmation of social status can be said to arouse particular emotions, which, in the

former case, function to reinforce and, in the latter case, facilitate changes in group identities

and power distribution. Established groups that receive high levels of social compliance

(thereby confirming superior status) experience pride. Marginalized groups that receive low

levels of compliance or receive non-compliance and attribute their lower status to an inferior

image of themselves (thereby confirming inferior status) experience shame. If established

groups receive non-compliance (thereby disconfirming superior status), these groups

experience fear. If marginalized groups receive non-compliance but blame others for their

lower status (thereby challenging inferior status) these groups experience resentment. Groups

can be said to exercise social power (the authority to attribute social status) based on emotions

of pride and resentment whereas groups that experience shame or fear are not capable to

exercise social power.

3. Emotion-based power-status figurations in the relations between Russia and the

West: From Western domination to Russian emancipation?

a) Past and present emotional dispositions and status considerations in the West and

Russia: The established and the outsider

Western status considerations toward Russia can be traced back to the Peace of Nystadt on 30

August 1721 which “confirmed the position that Russia had attained as a great power during

the Great Northern War (…) As a consequence of its new status as a great power, Russia

became a European state insofar as the Russian Empire had to be incorporated into the system

of European international relations”.52

52 Hans Bagger, ‘The Role of the Baltic in Russian Foreign Policy’, in Imperial Russian Foreign Policy, ed Hugh Ragsdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 36.

Russia’s entry into the Western security orbit,

however, occurred not by invitation but predominantly out of Western fear given its

increasing material capabilities and ‘hard power’. As Neumann notes, Russia essentially

lacked the social attributes to fully comply with Western civilizational standards and was

instead shamed as a “semibarbarian state” that despite its material power could not be fully

15

ascribed ‘great power status’ by the established European great powers.53

In the post-Cold War European security architecture, Western policymakers face a

similar dilemma of having to accommodate the legal successor to the Soviet Union without

being willing to grant it full equal status. This has perhaps been one of the central issues in

Western engagement with Russia following the end of bipolar confrontation. On the one

hand, as former NATO Secretary General Willy Claes acknowledges, “(i)t is true that we

have not been in a position to dissipate all suspicions left behind by the Cold War”. On the

other hand, he cedes that “this country (Russia) is too big to be isolated from Europe by

others”.

As such, Russia

became Pluto in the Western solar system: “very far from the center but still fundamentally a

part of it” (Trenin 2006, 87).

54

53 Iver Neumann, ‘Status is Cultural Durkheimian Poles and Weberian Russians Seek Great-Power Status’, in Status in World Politics, eds Deborah Welch Larson, T.V. Paul and William C. Wohlforth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 102.

These emotional dispositions are mirrored in a way in the century-long debate in

Russia about the country’s position and role in the relations with the West. The relations with

the West have always been a complicated one – oscillating between the wish to be a part of

Europe and the Western civilization and the perception that Russia is culturally different and

Russian values are incompatible with the West (e.g. Malinova 2009), represented in the

discussions between the so-called “Westerners” and the so-called “slavophiles” (see the

Philosophical letters of Petr Chadaev). Westerners advocated for a modern, liberal Russia,

modelled along the concept of Western European countries of that time. From a Westerner’s

position, Russia’s structural approximation to the Western model was an ‘image-to-be’. In

this sense it implied an in-group understanding, overcoming isolation, however with the

consequence that the laggard Russia had a minor social status in this group. The

“Slavophiles”, on the contrary, rejected this Western identity and the subsequent lower social

status as weakness and vulnerability – a condition not desirable. They advertised more

imperial and nationalist, thus strong and proud, images of Russia. For the Slavophiles, Russia

was not part of the West, that Russia was culturally “different”. Russia was constructed as the

“European other” (Krastev 2007) outside the Western civilizational model and group, arguing

that for the purpose of strengths (and status), it must preserve its special role and character as

a more Eastern, orthodox and Eurasian country (for an in-depth illustration of the two

positions see Andersen 1967). Hence, the oscillation between Westerners and Eurasianists is

also, in sociological terms, an emotional oscillation between shame – not be as developed as

54 Andreas Behnke, NATO’s Security Discourse After the Cold War: Representing the West (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 115.

16

Western Europe, and pride – of being a strong Eurasian empire. Although the two opposing

historical models and storylines experienced a number of adaptations over the time, the

discussion and attached emotional dispositions in essence remained the same until today.

They are relevant for our analysis because they were reactivated after the fall of the

communist regime in the early 1990s, when Russians tried to define their political identity

anew and fill the ideological vacuum that the fall of the Communist ideology and the end of

the superpower status of the Soviet Union had caused.

b) Russia and NATO in the 1990s: From high ambitions to disillusionment

The first post-Soviet Russian government under Boris Yeltsin, a strong critic of the

communist system in the last years of the Soviet Union, clearly oriented its policy along

Western ideas. He restarted the relationship with the ambition to integrate Russia into the

community of democratic states. Westernization was a sine qua non for social inclusion in the

new global and political environment and, thus, for positive status production. In domestic as

well as international statements and agreements, the Russian administration strongly

underlined the fact that the Russian Federation had radically turned into a “democratic”

country, adhering to fundamental principles of the Western civilization model such as rule of

law and human rights.55

However, a feeling of inferiority and subsequent feelings of shame were hardly visible

in these early years. Although the geopolitical changes that in ‘reality’ created a very strong

status asymmetry between the two former superpowers and blocks – on the one end, the

Soviet Union as one of the two superpowers collapsed and disappeared, and with it its

geopolitical and ideological influence over one half of the world; on the other end, the demise

of Communism triggered a dynamic diffusion and ‘success story’ of the Western democratic

model worldwide –, this did not influence the perceived social hierarchy in Russia. A second

factor that contributed to a relatively untroubled attitude towards the West consisted in the

high degree of continuity in institutionalized political authority for Russia on the international

level. After the international community was willing to give the USSR’s now vacant

The fact that this new Euro-Atlantic course also let to a situation of

strong dependence on material support from the West apparently did not affect the perceived

positive status-producing outlook of group inclusion on the part of the Russian policy-makers.

The West reacted to Russian policy of approximation highly positive and encouraged Russia

in its attempts to adopt democracy and its guiding principles.

55 As expressed e.g. in: A Charter for American-Russian Friendship and Partnership, Washington: Office of the White House, 17 June 1992.

17

permanent seat in the UN Security Council to Russia, Russia became a “natural” member in

the elite club of most influential powers and norm-setters. In fact, Russia had perceived itself

as the mainland of the former Soviet Union and the inheritance of the USSR’s seat as logical.

Mutual arms reduction talks with the United States left the strategic balance, and thus basic

power structures, between the former antagonists untouched. The international status assets

seemed also to provide Russia with “the right to hold its own, independent positions on

matters of international and European security”.56

The emotional constructions used in the Russian official language on security matters

reinforced these beliefs. Russian policy-makers in their statements of that time do not

concentrate on the de-facto material power losses for Russia or ‘real’ asymmetries that

emerged due to Russia’s new situation in the post-Cold War order. Rather, the rhetoric

underlines the positive outlook of having overcome the decade-long divide and the prospects

for creating a common future. Communality seemed to be the predominant feeling that shaped

the Russian government’s attitude in the security relations with the West. Emotional markers

for strengthening this feeling of communality were the reference to ‘common values’ and

‘partnership’. In the security sphere particularly the need to constructively cooperate with the

West in creating a new security architecture for Europe. The outlook of a common system of

cooperative security in Europe dominated as moral belief and policy orientation.

In this sense, the Russian political elite had

reason to believe that the country’s social status in the new geopolitical environment was one

of a ‘democratic newcomer’, but due to its remaining material great power attributes not

necessarily an ‘inferior’, but an ‘equal’ one in the relations with the West. Thus, historically

grown feelings of pride, based on perceived (and real) Russian social superiority, not as an

adversary any more, within Western in-group, strongly influenced Russian elite thinking,

In these early years, several ideas emerged of how this system of cooperative security

could look like.57

56 Richard Sakwa 2011: Russia’s Identity: Between the ‚Domestic‘ and the ‘International’, in: Europe-Asia Studies 63: 6, 957-975, here p. 96. Not only Communists, but also reformers in the Russia assumed that Russia had “legitimate interests” in its near abroad. Soviet Deputy foreign minister, Yuli Kvitsinsky: “It goes without saying that there can be no return to the policy of domination in the Eastern European region for any nation. At the same time, the Soviet Union’s legitimate interests in this region have historical and geopolitical roots and must be taken into account. Those who value peace and stability on our continent, and want them to be lasting and durable, understand very well that the Eastern European region under no circumstances should become a source of threat to the security of the USSR. It is equally clear that there should be no foreign military bases or armed forces in this region.” Gerald B. H. Solomon , The NATO Enlargement Debate, 1990-1997: Blessings of Liberty (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998), 11.

Initially, the Russians assumed that both military blocks, the Warsaw Pact

57 Moscow knocks at NATO’s door, but …, in: Rossiskaya Gazeta, 21.12.1991 [Москва стучится в двери НАТО, но... , Российская газета, 21.12.1991]; Pavel Felgenhauer: Russia takes under control all nuclear

18

and NATO would be dissolved in order to enable a restart of the European security

architecture on the basis of the Helsinki document principles of the CSCE. History turned out

differently. Despite the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact NATO continued to exist. Now the

Russians hoped that it would transform itself from a military alliance into a broader political

and inclusive system of collective European security, with Russia and other East European

countries becoming members. For the Russians, Western representatives were suggestive to

equally aspiring to overcome the divide in the security relationship the West and open the

door for an inclusive policy with Russia.58 In July 1990 NATO members states at the NATO

summit in London expressed that “it is time to extend a hand of friendship to our former

adversaries.”59 In September that year at the 2+4 talks, which paved the way for Germany’s

reunification, Russia (SU) was assured that NATO would not move beyond Germany’s

borders.60 Soviet leaders mistakenly took this as a guarantee of NATO not to move further

east in general. This perception was reinforced by statements made by high-ranking NATO

officials towards CEE countries’ such as Poland and Hungary regarding their demands to

become a member of NATO. What NATO actually did was to fade-out the problem of

enlargement more generally. NATO instead highlighted its “stabilizing” force through the

creation of a dense “web of relations which does not exclude the Soviet Union”61. While for

instance NATO General Secretary Manfred Wörner early 1991 underlined that NATO will

“not be indifferent to the Security of Eastern Europe” shortly later in April he made clear:

“NATO is not seeking a shift of balance or an expansion of its military borders to the East.”62

The following NATO summit in Rome 1991, NATO came up with a new strategic

concept: transformation of NATO; cooperation, institutionalization of cooperation with CEE

in NACC as well as strengthening CSCE process. NATO must be part of a multi-institutional

system of cooperative security in Europe. Russian reactions were positive: Dec 1991: Yeltsin

fully supports efforts “to create a new system of security from Vancouver to Vladivostok”, as

was the wording in the NATO Rome declaration. In a letter that surprised the inaugural

production facilities, in: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 28.11.1991 [Павел Фельгенгауэр: Россия берет под свой контроль все предприятия ядерной промышленности, Независимая газета, 28.11.1991].

58 Bush sen. 59 Verbatim Record C-VR (90)36 of the North Atlantic with the participation of heads of state and

government, held on Thursday, 5 July 1990 at Lancaster House, London. 60 QUOTE. 61 Cit. from Adrian Hyde Price: The International Politics of East Central Europe, Oxford: Oxford University

Press 1996, p. 248. 62 Speech by Secretary-General Manfred Wörner at the Conference jointly sponsored by NATO and the CSFR

on the future of European security, held at the Cernin Palace, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prague, 25-26 April 1991.

19

session of the NACC he even raised the question of Russia’s NATO membership as a “long-

term political aim”.63 Official statements from president Yeltsin and foreign minister Kosyrev

suggest that an important baseline in the Russian position was that Russia is principally not

against NATO enlargement or the integration of the CEE countries into NATO, as long as

Moscow had a say on the process, shape and decision-making within an enlarged NATO.64 In

a letter to NATO, Yeltsin substantiates this claim. According to Yeltsin, Russian relations

with NATO should always stay “a step ahead”, and he refers to more fundamental security

needs underlining that: “not only the opposition but also moderate circles will, undoubtedly,

view [NATO expansion without Russian participation] as a new kind of isolation for our

country”.65

However, it seems that the Yeltsin administration was too strongly fixated on

principles of commonality, inclusion and in the security sphere on cooperative security

designs, as it both misread the evolving debate about NATO enlargement and overestimated

Russian influence on the enlargement process. Although still in 1992 NATO reiterated that it

“won’t go East”, representatives from the CEE countries as well as some officials within

NATO strongly advocated for an eastward enlargement, but at the same time heavily opposed

any Russian membership. In Moscow, this dynamic was met with some irritation. On the one

hand, pro-Western politicians, such as foreign minister Kosyrev and his deputy Churkin,

acknowledged that “Russia is not yet ready for NATO accession”,

66 thus more unwillingly

than willingly confirming social inferiority, but at the same time criticize the CEEC’S urge

for NATO enlargement as “NATO centrism” and rejecting anti-Russian resentments and

stigmatizations as “anti-Russian hysteria”.67 NATO’s following “open door policy”, starting

mid 1993, ran counter to the Russian administration’s initial aims, namely to establish a

common security space in Europe. Kosyrev repeatedly blamed the CEE countries for

inhibiting such a common security approach, also noting that a resentment-guided NATO-

enlargement “plays in the hands of Shirinovski” and other ultra-nationalist forces in the

country.68

63 Russia hopes to join NATO, in: LA Times, 21 December 1991: http://articles.latimes.com/1991-12-21/news/mn-604_1_nato-russia-join.

In one statement, he warns of a “new Jalta” – a new and definite divide of Europe –

as the “political price” the West and its allies will have to pay in the case of a NATO

64 Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kosyrev on Radio Rossii, 03.11.1993. 65 Yeltsin Opposes Expansion Of NATO in Eastern Europe, in: The New York Times, 2 October 1993. 66 Host Bacia: Churkin feels treated by the Serbs, FAZ, 20.04.1994] Horst Bacia: Tschurkin fühlt sich von den

Serben hintergangen , FAZ, 20.04.1994. 67 RTR Russian Television, Vesti, 22.02.1994 68 ORT Russian Television, Novosti, 10.03.1994.

20

enlargement.69 In reaction, Russia’s government tried to influence the push-started

enlargement process, putting forward an alternative proposal in order to avert Russian

exclusion from future European security design. According to this proposal, the enlarged

NATO was assumed to constitute one pillar of a more complex system of cooperative

security. As Kosyrev in his statement pointed out, the CSCE should be strengthened and act

as a “counterbalance” to “NATO within a new security system” in Europe, adding with a

moral connotation that “it was not NATO that has won the Cold War”.70

It is exactly at this moment, when Russian officials seem to for the first time “feel” the

status asymmetry which is created by Western policy and rhetoric, also reacting to increased

criticism from the ultra-nationalist Duma, by relating to status issues and criticizing the

Western policy of degrading and excluding Russia. Russian representatives accuse NATO of

sidelining Russia, reneging on the assurance which the West gave Russia in the course of

Germany’s reunification not to enlarge towards the East.

71 Regarding the question whether

Russia should join NATO’s PFP program, officials point out that Russia is “doomed to be a

great power”, that it cannot be treated as the CEEC, but must be treated as an equal partner72

and have a special status in PfP and NATO’s relations in general.73 The international conflict

management attempts in Bosnia emerged as an overlapping policy-issue, where the

impression of being excluded and sidelined by the West was reproduced. So far, Russia had

been eager to play a constructive role and had joined Western positions in the UNSC. In

principle, the Yeltsin administration also did not fundamentally oppose NATO military

intervention in Serbia under the roof of the UN, although it strongly opposed re-

interpretations of the international order, especially changes to the sovereignty norm.

However, when NATO airplanes hit Serbian targets on the ground on 10/11 April 1994,

Russia protested, but particularly against the fact that it had not been consulted. Soon after,

Kozyrev criticized the NATO-Russian relationship as being unequal and lacking mutual

respect.74

69 Andrei Kosyrev: The NATO membership ticket is not a credit card, in: Kommersant Daily, 11.04.1994 [Андрей Козырев: членский билет НАТО -- не кредитная карточка, Коммерсант Daily, 11.04.1994].

70 Ibid. 71 Julianne Smith, The NATO-Russia Relations: Defining Moment or Déjà Vu?, Center for Strategic &

International Studies (2008). Available at http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/081110_smith_natorussia_web. pdf (accessed August 12, 2015). Seite?

72 Kosyrev according to Vincent Pouliot, International Security in Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 178

73 Due to this debate Russia’s signing of the PfP was delayed. 74 Andrei Kozyrev, ‘The Lagging Partnership’, Foreign Affairs 73, no.3 (1994): 59-71.

21

The feeling of “second class” group member treatment and forced subordination

continued to breed in the NATO enlargement context, where it became ever clearer that

NATO would further pursue its path of enlargement – without granting Russia accession, but

more important for Moscow: without giving Russia an equal say in shaping the enlargement

process and European security arrangements in general. The US introduced in the NATO

discourse the formula to “giv[e] Russia a voice, but not a veto”,75 expressed by the fact that

none of the Russian counterproposals to the ongoing path of NATO enlargement put forward

in these years was seriously considered. Late 1994, Boris Yeltsin for the first time publicly

raises Russian disappointment about NATO,76

Arbatov, 1997

and half a year later he accuses the West of

definitely breaking away from the idea of cooperative security. Not incidentally, by 1995/96,

Evgeni Primakov introduced Russia’s new foreign policy principle, based on the so-called

“patriotic consent” ( ) and now also officially putting a stronger emphasis on

strengths as a function of Russian great power status.77

75 As e.g. expresses already 1995 by US Ambassador to NATO Robert Hunter during a speech in London, cit. according to Martin A. Smith: A bumpy road to an unknown destination? NATO-Russia relations 1991-2002, in: Rick Fawn (ed): Realignments in Russian Foreign Policy, London: Frank Cass, 2003, P. 59, and then frequently reiterated by US foreign minister Madeleine Albright.

Russia partly moves away from a

purely ‘Atlanticist’ position to more traditional ideas of ‘strategic interests’ and ‘spheres of

influence’/geopolitics (Primakov, 1997). In this sense, the Russian diplomacy pushed hard for

a status upgrade through more influence in the relations with NATO. Russia’s inclusion in the

PfP is a good example to show how different the perceptions were regarding the

consequences on status. NATO’s view can be interpreted in a way that it “allowed” Russia to

participate in its Partnership for Peace program as well as the North Atlantic Cooperation

Council (later renamed Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council) and saw the NATO-Russia

Founding Act of 1996 and the setup of the Permanent Joint Council as a strong sign that

granted Russia special status as a future “strategic partner” of the West including

“participation on an equitable basis” (NRC 1997, 9). The Russians, however, domestically

quite intensely debated the pros and cons, but finally accepted NATO’s offers on the basis of

the outlook that Russia would at least not lose any more influence. The following statement

suggests that Russian policy-makers thought that they did not really have a choice not to

accept NATO’s offers:

76 Pouliot, International Security in Practice, 168. 77 Pouliot, International Security in Practice, 179.

22

“We believe that the eastward expansion of NATO is a mistake and a serious one. […] Nevertheless, in

order to minimize the negative consequences for Russia, we decided to sign an agreement with

NATO.”78

Russia’s formal status upgrade reconciled Moscow for a moment and created an atmosphere

of we-ness and equality on its part. This feeling is expressed in Russia’s support to NATO’s

first out-of-area mission in Bosnia in 1995 as well the setup of Russia’s diplomatic mission to

NATO. Both express the will to stay inside the group of those who set and act according to

the “new” evolving rules of the international system. However, it became quite clear quite

soon that while Russia was welcomed as a partner who follows Western norms, Russia’s real

influence on NATO’s decision-making remained marginal to none. Western policymakers

refrained from allowing Russia full access to the ‘elite club’ of established NATO members

because it did not comply with Western civilization standards. Russian warnings to

“reconsider PCJ cooperation if accession of the Baltic states was to go forward” or offers to

give the Baltics security guarantees, hoping that such guarantees would render Baltic

membership in NATO unnecessary, did not render any results.

c) The Kosovo case 1999: assertive NATO, angry Russia

The Kosovo case highlighted the fundamental gap in status perception between NATO and

Russia even stronger. As has been said earlier, in the Bosnian case, the Russian leadership did

not fundamentally oppose interventionist ideas or a role for NATO in peacekeeping, as long

as the country did have a say in the decision, be it through informal bilateral consultation and

agreement with NATO or more formal international approval in the UNSC. The most recent

experience with NATO, however, had been that the Alliance was not ready and obviously not

willing to share any decisions on European and international security with Russia. A key goal

of Russian foreign policy, therefore, was to prevent the international community from taking

any decision that would consolidate NATO’s role as a regulative factor in European security

matters, thereby degrading and marginalizing Russia in international politics.79

78 Thomas W. Lippman, ‘Clinton, Yeltsin Agree on Arms Cut and NATO’, Washington Post Foreign Service, March 22 1997, A01.

Foreign

Minister Ivanov in February 1999 underlined that Russia is “a key player in the international

79 This position was, although in a more modest way, in essence already formulated in Russia’s Foreign Policy Concept of 1993. Government of the Russian Federation: Foreign Policy Concept 1993, printed in: Diplomaticeskii Vestnik. Special Edition, January 1993 [Правительство Российской Федерации: Концепция Внешней Политики 1993, Дипломатический Вестник. Специальный Выпуск, Январь 1993]. As Sakwa writes, the elites early on defined Russia as an equal. They did not perceive Russia “[…] as a defeated power, obligated to defer to the United States and its allies“, see: Sakwa, Russia’s Identity, op. cit, p. 963)

23

arena” and that “the resolution of major modern problems is impossible without Russia’s

direct participation”.80 From this perception it is no wonder that in the context of the

international conflict management in Kosovo, Russia categorically rejected any military

intervention from NATO and tried to push internationally agreed diplomatic solutions instead.

Western leaders, on their part, rather put the emphasis on the perceived disagreement on the

norm, not on Russia’s status claims. They claimed that the international community had an

obligation to end violence in Kosovo and that also Russia carried the responsibility if not the

obligation to promote and defend human rights in Kosovo. They blamed Russia for

protracting the conflict by morally supporting Milosevic and even making the Serbian

leadership more adamant to a peaceful solution of the conflict. Already in 1998, the US

considered a military intervention by NATO – even without a UN mandate. The US Secretary

of State Albright concluded: “If force is required, then we will not be deterred by the fact that

Russians do not agree with that.”81

Adding insult to injury, Western states furthermore disregarded Russia’s international

status as a UN veto power by acting without Russia’s consent in the UN Security Council and

commencing its air campaign against Serbia without a mandate from the UN in the night from

March 24 to 25, 1999. Russians reacted with widespread verbal protests and expressions of

discontent and anger. Strong consent across the political camps within Russia and a high

degree of resonance among high-ranking representatives from the political environment,

encompassing government members, communists and nationalists, as well as leaders of the

democratic parties and regional representatives.

82

80 Press conference with foreign minister Igor Ivanov, MID Press Center, January 22, 1999. From: Official Kremlin International News Broadcast.

The substance of the protest was the

expression of a feeling of humiliation; however the reference points differed slightly.

Officials basically criticized the moral and political inappropriateness of the decision: a

unilateral step, undermining the international norm of the prohibition of the use of force and

Russia’s authority in the UNSC as well as weakening European structures of cooperative

81 Cit. from Dmitri K. Simes: Russia's crisis, America's complicity. National. Interest. Winter 1998/1999, p. 14.

82 See: V. Korsunski: Agreement on consent against NATO, in: Izvestia 26.03.1999 [В. Корзунский: Договор о согласии против НАТО, Известия, 26.03.1999] ; N. Ulyanov: Strana podderzhala Primakova, in: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 25.03.1999 [Н. Ульянов: Страна поддержала Примакова, Независимая Газета, 25.03.1999].

24

security.83 Ultranationalists argued more in terms of Great Power status denial and

characterized NATO as a direct threat to Russia.84

From a Western point of view, however, Russian criticism was beside the point. In

Kosovo, NATO members framed great power status as having a responsibility to protect

human rights and if Russia was to live up to its status aspirations it could not hide behind its

formal status as a UN veto power. As British Prime Minister Tony Blair underlined: “We are

fighting for a world where dictators are no longer able to visit horrific punishments on their

own peoples in order to stay in power. (...) Russia has a unique and leading role to play in

these efforts.”

85

d) Russia and NATO in the new millennium: Russia resenting over denied status, NATO

fearing a resurgent Russia

Russian-Western relations after the turn of the millennium started quite promising. After the

Kosovo dispute, Russia was again taken ‘on board’ and received a formal status upgrade as a

member of the G8. After the presidential elections in 2000, President Putin suggested to

overcome animosities, misunderstanding and dispute and announced the goal of a new,

constructive and “real” partnership with the West, based on pragmatism and mutual

interests.86

83 Duma Observer. Bulletin oft he State Duma, 28.03.1999, Nr. 47 (738) [Думское Обозрение. Бюллетень Госдумы Федерального Собрания РФ, 28.03.1999, Nо 47 (738)].

The 9/11 terrorist attacks and the converging interest to fight terrorism indeed

brought Russia and the US as well as NATO closer together for some time and leveled

Russia’s status in the relationship. President Putin was the first state leader to call US

President Bush after the planes had hit the World Trade Center and Russia subsequently

opened its airspace and intelligence archives to assist in Operation Enduring Freedom in

Afghanistan. American momentary vulnerability and weakness resulted in a new self-

confidence in Russia. At a speech at the NATO headquarters in October 2001, Putin

underlines that: “[i]f NATO were to become a political organization, of course, we could

84 See also a more encompassing analysis of the 1999 Kosovo case as emotion-fed status conflict: Regina Heller: Russia’s quest for respect in the international conflict management in Kosovo 1999, in: Communist and Post-Communist Studies 47 (2014), 333-343.

85 Tony Blair: A New Generation Draws The Line, in: Newsweek, 18.04.1999. 86 After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, Russia offered the US cooperation in the fight of international

terrorism; it moreover tried to position itself as a reliable energy partner vis-á-vis the European Union. In his first speech, newly elected Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that not military competition with the United States was the main foreign policy concern for Russia, but rather Russia’s economic competitiveness in a globalized world, see: Government of the Russian Federation: Foreign Policy Concept, printed in: Diplomaticeski Vestnik 8, 01.08.2000, p. 3-11 [Правительство Российской Федерации: Концепция Внешней Политики, Дипломатический Вестник, 8, 01.08.2000, стр. 3-11].

25

reconsider our position on enlargement.”87 More institutional rapprochement was to follow.

In the Rome Declaration of 2002, both sides agreed to give their mutual relationship “a new

quality”. Both would act as “equal partners” in joint decision-making and political practice

“to stand together against common threats”.88

However, Western policymakers would attempt to keep emotional barriers in place leaving

Russia with a feeling of social inferiority as the ‘odd one out’ in NATO’s established group.

In fact, Russian policymakers frequently complained about the “scholastic discussions” and a

lack of focus on substantial content in the NRC. In fact, NATO members have the right to

veto or withdraw any point on the NRC agenda. Referring directly to this kind of unequal

treatment in the Council, still in 2009 the Russian envoy to NATO told Western journalists

that the Alliance needed to “take part in the discussion not from a bloc approach (...) not in

the form of 26+1 but in the form of 27 members of the NATO-Russia Council“.

To underscore their desire for concerted

international action to address terrorism and other new security threats, the Rome Declaration

formally established the NATO-Russia Council to replace the Permanent Joint Council

created by the NATO-Russia Founding Act in 1997.

89

NATO-Russian relations deteriorated soon thereafter over NATO’s missile defense shield

in Poland and the Czech Republic, where Russia once again felt that it was sidelined, as well

as emerging discussions about a possible membership of Georgia and Ukraine in NATO. The

missile defense issue gained momentum late 2001, when the then Bush administration

announced US unilateral withdrawal from the ABM treaty in order to be able to set up the

technical structures for a European element of a missile defense system. Increasing tensions

between US/NATO and Russia were ignited by the plans to base elements of that MDS in

countries of Eastern Europe. Russians argued that the fact that American strategic

infrastructure will approach to Russian borders undermines Russian defensive capacities and,

thus the strategic balance in Europe, which was seen in Russia as a cornerstone of European

security.

90

87 S. Daley: Putin Softens his stance against NATO expansion, in: New York Times, 4 October 2001.

Moreover Moscow accused the US to invent scenarios that lack real facts, relating

88 NATO Russia Relations: A New Quality. Declaration by Heads of State and Government of NATO Member States and the Russian Federation, Rome, 28 May 2002.

89 Dmitri Rogozin: “Russia does not rule out future NATO membership”, telephone interview with EUobserver, 1 April 2009, https://euobserver.com/defence/27890.

90 For instance: Dmitri Rogozin: „Хуже того, согласно планам НАТО по 3-й и 4-й фазам развертывания ПРО США в Европе, часть территории России с 2018 года покрывается зоной действия информационных и огневых противоракетных средств, которые будут размещены в Польше и североевропейских морях.“ Dmitri Rogozin: Russia’s foreign policy: it is good being a leader, in: Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 29.02.2012 [Дмитрий Рогозин: Внешняя политика России: лидером быть выгодно, Российская газета, 29.02.2012].

26

to the argument that EMDS is setup to intercept missiles from Iran. More generally,

politicians and military staff in Russia called EMDS a direct threat to Russian security and

painted the scenario of a new arms race on the wall.91 Although NATO members made clear

that they aspired to work together with Russia to find a solution for missile defense, they

clearly rejected any Russian claims to influence the structure of EMDS, even after US

president Obama announced his “reset” policy in relations with Russia in 2009. In this vein,

the Russian proposal of a new European security treaty from 2010, suggesting to cover all

security issues in a new overarching architecture, was more or less ignored. Equally,

Moscow’s claim to receive security guarantees from NATO or its proposal of creating a

common EMDS, 92

An even more explosive issue became NATO’s relations with the post-Soviet countries.

2005 started a discussion, not least pushed by the US, on the question whether Georgia and

Ukraine should become members of NATO. Both countries (Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in

2004) were gripped by the so-called ‘colored revolutions’ and strongly realigned (Ukraine

only temporarily until the election of Russian-friendly Victor Yanukovich in 2010) with the

West. At the same time, Russia intensified its attempts to tie its neighbors closer to the

country and integrate them into Russia-led projects of political and economic integration. The

Russian government declares the neighborhood Russia’s “sphere of privileged interests”

were rejected. NATO’s ambivalent stance on Russian’ inclusion is best

expressed by NATO’s motto to aspire “separate, but cooperative systems”.

93

91 E.g. president Putin at a press conference in Vienna: „Мы считаем, что это абсолютно вредная вещь, не вызванная необходимостью реальной обстановки ни в Европе, ни в мире. Что такого негативного происходит в Европе, что нужно наполнять Восточную Европу новыми и новыми вооружениями? Почему нужно открывать новую базу в Болгарии? Зачем нужно открывать новую базу в Румынии? Зачем нужно создавать позиционный район в Чехии? Зачем нужно размещать ракеты в Польше? Что такого произошло, что ухудшило ситуацию в Европе и требует таких действий? Ничего, кроме нового витка гонки вооружений, не будет.“ Заявление для прессы и ответы на вопросы в ходе совместной пресс-конференции с Федеральным президентом Австрии Хайнцем Фишером, 23 мая 2007 года, Вена [Statement for the press and answers during a joint press-conference with the Federal President of Austria Heinz Fischer, 23.05.2007, Vienna], Press Center of the Russian President, 23 May 2007.

and, in order to spur integration, made use of political and economic carrots and sticks.

Moscow at the same time criticized the West’s assumed role in the colored revolutions,

particularly in Ukraine, blaming it for heavily interfering in Ukraine’s domestic affairs, as the

92 As put forward by foreign minister Lavrov: Ответы Министра иностранных дел России С.В.Лаврова на вопросы радиослушателей в эфире радиостанций «Голос России», «Радио России» и «Эхо Москвы», 21 октября 2011 года [Answers from foreign minister S.V. Lavrov to the questions from listeners oft he radio stations „Voice of Russia“, „Radio Russiya“ and „Echo Moskvy“, 21.10.2011], Press Center of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation, 22.10.2011.

93 Dmitri Medvedev in an interview with Rossiya television station (1st channel] in 2008: Интервью Дмитрия Медведева телеканалам «Россия», Первому, НТВ, 31 August 2008, Sochi. Kremlin Archive.http://archive.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2008/08/205991.shtml.

27

Putin regime expected a negative spill-over of revolutionary dynamics to Russia prior to the

parliamentary and presidential elections 2007/2008. Western policymakers rejected Russian

criticism citing instead the principle of national self-determination of the Ukrainian people

and instead accused Russia of attempting to roll back revolutionary accomplishments. As a

result, the Bucharest summit turned into a solidarity ritual with the color revolutions when

NATO members declared that the Ukraine and Georgia would join NATO “at one point in the

future” and warned Russia that it had no right to veto those countries decisions on NATO

accession.94

Both issues, EMDS and the post-Soviet neighborhood, triggered strong feelings of

resentment in the Russian political elite. At several occasions, president Putin expressed his

indignation about the West and, in his eyes, the unjustified lower status attribution, thereby

reproducing many of the status-relevant issues of dissent that occurred since the early 1990s

and underlying emotions. One ample example of these emotions is Putin’s speech at the

Munich Security Conference 2007 and his explicit criticism of Western ignorant and for

Russia destabilizing policies of the last years.

95 At various occasions he states: “America does

not want partners, but vassals. […] But Russia does not work like that.”96 At another

occasion, Putin calls on NATO to stop “forcing forward your relations with the Eastern

European countries“.97

Notwithstanding the regional and local significance the Georgian-Russian war in 2008

clearly had, it was also a conflict over status in the post-Soviet space with NATO actively

pushing for the accession of Georgia to NATO and Russia strongly rejecting any further

infringement of its status as a regional great power in the post-Soviet space. While the West

had been at most surprised by Putin’s angry speeches so far, Western perceptions clearly

turned more negative after Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008. NATO not only condemned

the military invasion but threatened to permanently withhold status recognition. As an

immediate reaction, it ceased formal cooperation in the NATO-Russia Council. The G7

foreign ministers issued a statement arguing that: “Russia’s actions have called into question

94 QUOTE 95 Prezident Rossii: Vystuplenie i diskussija na Mjunchenskoj konferencii po voprosam politiki bezopasnosti.

10 fevralja 2007 goda Mjunchen: <http://archive.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2007/ 02/118097.shtml>. 96 E.g. in an interview on EMDS in the documentary „Cholodnaya Politika” (Cold Politics) broadcasted on

Russian television 2012. 97 Thom Shanker and Steven Lee Myers: Putin Criticizes U.S. Officials on Missile Defense, The New York

Times, 13 October 2007.

28

its commitment to peace and security in the Caucasus“.98 Russian policymakers, on the

contrary, resented NATO policymaking in Russia’s immediate neighborhood: “We are

extremely frustrated and astonished by NATO’s actions in August-September last year, when

our soldiers were killed and instead of support, we only saw the hypocrisy of their policy.

NATO turned out to be the only organisation that sided fully with the aggressor“.99

“Today I am representing a strong Russia and I feel – even personally – a completely different attitude

towards us, the Russian representatives, here in Brussels. They look at us completely different – they

look at us with respect – and I consider this to be Russia’s key diplomatic achievement.”

Moreover,

Russian resentment was accompanied by emotional expressions of national pride as another

quote from Rogozin shows:

100

Also, by militarily intervening in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia eventually succeeded in

pushing back NATO enlargement, at least in the Caucasus, and thus secure its status as a

regional power. In a speech some years later, president Medvedev underlines:

“[And] a number of countries which (NATO) tried to deliberately drag into the alliance, would have

most likely already been part of it now”,

also adding:

“We abandoned direct competition (with NATO), but […] we now have different visions of the

solutions of a number of security issues […].”101

Russia’s determination to use military force in Georgia and its rhetoric seemed to have

triggered considerations in the West to again reproach Russia in security issues and meet the

country on an equal level. Obama’s and NATO’s “reset” policy are a direct reaction to the

war in Georgia. NATO Secretary General Rasmussen devoted his inaugural speech to NATO-

Russia relations and announced a “new beginning”. To underline Russia’s elevated status as a

“real stakeholder” in European and international security affairs, NATO recognized that

“Russia has security interests which we need to understand and take into account”.

102

98 Financial Times, 28 August 2008.

At the

99 Valentina Pop, ‘Russia Does Not Rule Out Future NATO Membership’, EUobserver (2009). Available at http://euobserver.com/defence/27890 (accessed 12 August 2015).

100 Dmitri Rogozin: I am representing a strong Russia!, 20.08.2008: http://natomission.ru/society/article/society/ artpublication/25/.

101 Denis Dyomkin, ‘Russia Says Georgia War Stopped NATO Expansion’, Reuters (2011). Available at http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/11/21/idINIndia-60645720111121 (accessed August 12, 2015).

102 Anders Fogh Rasmussen: NATO and Russia: A new beginning Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the Carnegie Endowment, Brussels. 18 September 2009.

29

same time, however, Western policymakers would neither compromise on NATO

enlargement into former Soviet territory nor on European missile defense and could not

comprehend how Russia would see that as undermining its status as a great power. From a

Western perceptive, opposition to NATO expansion undermined Russian status aspirations

because it reverted Russia to a pre-modern imperialist state. Therefore, it was the

interpretation in the West that Russian security concerns lacked any geopolitical basis. NATO

claimed to have no intention to marginalize or ‘encircle’ the former Soviet space and had

promised that it “will never attack Russia”:103

“NATO does not support the idea of spheres of interests or influence. This should be left where it

belongs – in the dustbin of history. We all live in an interdependent, global world in which countries –

great, medium, and small – should enjoy the same rights and sovereignty. NATO is certainly not

developing any ‘spheres of influence’ of its own” (RT 2011).

Thus, Russia as a ‘good modern great power’ had to subordinate itself to and confirm and

replicate NATO’s benign intentions and the norms that underlie NATO’s policy.

However, this would less and less be the case. Russian abstention from the UNSC

resolution on the creation of a no-fly zone over Libya in 2011 was so far the last time that

Moscow supported (better: did not obstruct) Western interventionist policies. In fact, Russia

was praised by NATO members for not blocking the resolution which aimed at preventing

massive human rights violations in Bengasi and elsewhere.104 But as soon as reports about

dead civilians and damage of civil infrastructure caused by the international military operation

increased in numbers, Russia began to criticize NATO for having overstepped the UN

mandate on Libya. Then Prime Minister Putin, passing back the accusation of backwardness,

said that the resolution resembled a “medieval calls for crusades”.105 In fact, Russia

complained against NATO for having raised false hopes and expectation, blaming the West

for taking advantage of Russian cooperation to break international law and pursue its own

interests.106

103 RT 2011, Rasmussen 2009

In the following international crisis management in Syria, Russia took on a much

harder position. According to political commentator Fedor Lukjanov, by opposing any

Western initiatives in Syria, Moscow wanted to payback the political “humiliation” from the

104 ‘U.S. Defense Secretary Praises Russian Cooperation’, B92 (2011). Available at http://www.b92.net/eng/news/world.php?yyyy=2011&mm=03&dd=21&nav_id=73353 (accessed August 12, 2015).

105 ‘Russia “Backs” NATO Action in Libya’, Sputnik News (2011). Available at http://en.ria.ru/world/20110812/165729976.html (accessed August 12, 2015).

106 Grigorij Mirskij, cited in Vedomosti: Ot redakcii: Začem nam drug Asad. Vedomosti, 5.6.2012.

30

decision on Libya and show that the West “cannot sideline Russia”.107 Moscow not only

started to display a more independent position, but also one that intends to show moral

superiority to the West, thereby reverting the perceived asymmetrical power-status figuration

in the relationship. According to Aleksei Pushkov, chairman of the Duma committee on

International Affairs, the Western policy in Libya did have “nothing to do with the strength of

the law and the norms of the civilized world“.108 According to Pushkov, the West’s intentions

are to change the norms of the international system for its own benefit – and it wants Russia

to follow suit.109

e) The Ukraine crisis: a pride-pride/shame-shame deadlock?

The Ukraine crisis is the most obvious example that Russia’s political elite tries to create a

positively distinctive identity for Russia through reversion of the perceived social status order

between Russia and the West. Russian framing and argumentation is not only about resenting

over unjustified lower status attribution, about claiming inclusion or shaming exclusion any

more, but about the discursive construction of an alternative positive role model and identity

for Russia that clearly distances the country from the West, its social authority over Russia as

well as its normative ordering principles. This new narratives consist of the following basic

elements: First: Russia is morally superior to its Western counterparts. This moral superiority

is based on adherence to the long-standing and effective – in terms of creating stability –

operating rules of the international system. The most important and basic rule is sovereignty

and non-interference, while Western liberal universalism is strongly rejected. Thus, Russia is

not justifying itself any more, but ‘counter-blames’ the West for moral trespassing in Ukraine,

Syria, and elsewhere. This is observed notwithstanding the fact that Russia in the Ukrainian

crisis interfered in the domestic affairs of a sovereign country and that Russian leaders,

strangely enough, argue along lines that strongly resemble liberal concepts: namely that

Russia has intervened – particularly with regard to the annexation of Crimea – in order to

“protect the lives and the rights” of the Russian and Russian-speaking minority against

potential violence,110

107 Fedor Lukyanov, cited in: Vedomosti, Ot redakcii, op. cit.

or as the Russian Envoy to the UN Vitalii Churkin put it, “with all the

108 Alexey Pushkov, ‘Behind Russia’s Syria Stance’, The National Interest (2013). Available at http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/behind-russias-syria-stance-8623 (accessed August 12, 2015).

109 Ibid. 110 Обращение Президента Российской Федерации. 18 марта 2014 года, 15:50 Москва, Кремль

[Presidential Address, 18.03.2014, Moscow, Kremlin].

31

signs of ethnic cleansing”.111 This also means that Russia’s intentions in Ukraine, as in

international politics in general, are “good” and that Russia is a normatively oriented power

that uses its force to promotes peace in the world, while the West is blamed and stigmatized

for acting ‘selfish’, disrespectful of international norms and, thus, irresponsible.112 Secondly,

this positive self-image is underpinned with nationalistic elements, combining heroism,

imperial glory and other more conservative and resentment-driven ideas about Russia’s

national role and mission. They are resentment-driven because all these elements strongly rely

on pre-existing historically grown narratives of a Russia that is distinctively different from the

West/from Europe and that finds its identification via nationalistic ideas. These narratives of

nationalistic pride served as mechanisms to overcome a perceived/felt inferiority vis-à-vis the

European/Western “other” already in the past.113

NATO, for its part, employs a similar discursive strategy of blaming Russia for its “illegal

and illegitimate” actions in the Ukraine crisis.

A central argument here is that the “West” is

politically and culturally in decline. This ties on to a century-old narrative about Western

Europe as a ‘fallen’ continent – fallen in a sense that the “West” – Western Europe – while

adopting liberal principles of statehood has ‘lost’ its Christian values and morals – justice,

peace, respect and mercy –, whereas Russia remains the steward of the ‘true’ Christian

Europe. Another element is the reliance on nationalistic pride. This goes along with the

argument that only autocracy and obedience towards a ‘responsible’ and ‘just’ state authority

can promote peace and stability. These more recent framings have a new quality compared to

the anger-guided policy of the first decade of the 2000s and might be a sign that Russia is

about to adopt a post-post Cold War identity in its relations with the West. Most important is

that on an emotional level, they create a relationship which is characterized by competition, if

not close to rivalry, and that they moreover give legitimization for the Russian leadership to

adopt new security practices in Europe as well as redefine the rules of engagement with

NATO and other Western actors.

114

111 Выступление Постоянного представителя России при ООН В.И.Чуркина на открытом заседании Совета Безопасности ООН по ситуации на Украине, Нью-Йорк, 19 марта 2014 года [Statement of the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation, Vitali Churkin, at the open UN Security Council Meeting on Ukraine, New York, 19 March 2014].

Specifically, NATO states accuse Russia of

violating the territorial sovereignty of the Ukraine through military intervention. By

112 Обращение Президента Российской Федерации. 18 марта 2014 года, 15:50 Москва, Кремль [Presidential Address, 18.03.2014, Moscow, Kremlin].

113 See for instance: William Leatherbarrow/Derek Offord (eds): A history of Russian thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010, chapters on “the West” (ch. 9, p 197-216) and “the East” (ch. 8, p. 217-240).

114 Statement by NATO Foreign Ministers on Russia, Press Release (2014) 062, 1 April 2014.

32

“condemning” Russia for having caused the Ukraine crisis115, NATO members discursively

intensify a positive we-feeling on the inside by contrasting it to a negative emotion encoding

of anger and projection of shame/blame on an outsider (Russia): “Our goal of a Euro-Atlantic

region whole, free, and at peace has not changed, but has been fundamentally challenged by

Russia”.116 What is more, NATO states discursively frame the current situation in a way that

denies Russia’s status as a ‘responsible partner of the West’: “Over the past twenty years,

NATO has consistently worked for closer relations and trust with Russia. However, Russia

has violated international law and has acted in contradiction with the principles and

commitments in the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Basic Document, the NATO-Russia

Founding Act, and the Rome Declaration. It has gravely breached the trust upon which our

cooperation must be based.”117 From NATO’s perspective, Russia does not deserve the higher

moral status it claims because its political elites seem to have betrayed shared liberal values

and international principles that the NATO-Russia partnership used to be based on. This

pride/shame dualism reveals a Western mind-set that puts Russia on equal footing with the

threat of the so-called Islamic State (IS). In the words of former NATO General Secretary

Rasmussen: “Russia has trampled on all the rules and commitments that have kept peace in

Europe and beyond since the end of the Cold War. It is now clear that Russia regards the

West as an adversary, not a partner“.118

4. Conclusion

Whereas there are constant status markers for Russia such as equal social status within the

group of international political authorities in the UNSC as consolidated in the post-WW II

era, what is perhaps more important are the variations in its status markers, notably the degree

of a sense of belonging to the “West” as a civilizational model in the post-Cold War era.

Russian policy-makers have more or less always tried to reject a Western social domination

over Russia, however with different intensity and different emotional attributions and with

different strategies overcoming the perceived asymmetrical power-status figuration.

First, there have been asymmetries in the social relationship through accentuation of an

inclusive with the West identity in all instances based on strong emotional orientation towards

115 NATO’s Relations with Russia, 17 June 2015, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_50090.htm? 116 Statement by NATO Foreign Ministers on Russia, Press Release (2014) 062, 1 April 2014. 117 Ibid. 118 Rasmussen, Anders Fogh (2014) The Dual Threats to Western Values, in: The Wall Street Journal,

http://www.wsj.com/articles/anders-fogh-rasmussen-the-dual-threats-to-western-values-1410823520.

33

the West and its guiding norms. Second, we have witness a rejection of Western domination

of the social relationship. In the first decade of the new millennium the status-power

figuration on the Russian side was dominated by anger, gradually turning into resentment,

which materialized in various attempts to produce a political counterweight and to try to

change the asymmetric circumstances triggered by repeating incidences of emotional

exclusion and stigmatization attempts.

In the course of the Georgian war we observed this gradual transformation in the emotion-

based power-status figurations between NATO and Russia to complete. While Russia started

to behave more aggressively toward its immediate neighbors and the West (an expression of

resentment), NATO seemed more afraid of a resurgent Russia that could eventually challenge

NATO’s superior status. This leads us to conclude that the pride (NATO)/shame (Russia)

power-status figuration could be (or has already been) replaced by a fear/resentment

figuration elevating if not equating Russia’s status vis-à-vis the West.

More recently, and spurred by the conflict over Ukraine, we witnessed a second

transformation of the power-status figuration, turning into a shame-shame/pride-pride

constellation. Russia, while still displaying elements of resentment, has started to create a new

identity that not only tries to overcome, but decisively reverse the perceived power-status

asymmetry with NATO. This constellation is well reminiscent of the Cold War era. The

material contexts and constellations between Russia and NATO do not speak in favor of a

“New Cold War”. However, when looking at the current power-status figuration, the

impression grows that the emotional part of the relationship has reconfigured along lines we

thought to have overcome a long time ago.

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