Identity and the emergence of national interests in post-Soviet Russia

One primary and one secondary theoretical quest have been undertaken here. The primary task of this work has been to build a theory of collective identity and interest formation that pertains to world politics and to establish its empirical plausibility. The secondary, and unfinished, enterprise is to move international relations theorists towards a wider, more consensual understanding of international institutional change. I combine approaches that emphasize the logic of reciprocity in iterated interaction (Axelrod 1984), the reflected appraisals of Others (Wendt 1999) and the domestic process (Haas 1997) of identity formation. I also present an identity-selection mechanism, what I call a "correspondence test of legitimacy." Based on this I build a theory that can explain both the dynamic driving the process of national identity formation in post-Soviet Russia and how this process has led the political elite to define Russia's national interest in maintaining its status as a global great power. I examine the plausibility of this theory-building exercise through qualitative analysis of post-Soviet elite debate on Russia's national identity and national interests and in case studies of strategic arms control and pan-European security. The empirical findings suggest that this theory-building exercise can bear fruit, as the approach outlined above provides a plausible account of post-Soviet identity and interest formation. The Russian political elite has developed a national interest in status maintenance based on 19th century thought and the continued legitimacy of Russia's historical status as a great power. The alternative approaches derived from Wendt (1999) and Axelrod (1984), and Walt's (1987) balance of threat approach would expect other states' behavior towards Russia to be the key variable leading to the definition of post-Soviet Russia's identity and national interests. However, post-Soviet, Russia's identity and interests have to date been largely formed through a process of Russia's appraisal of itself reflected against its own past, rather than against another state. The process of identity and interest formation suggests that attention to mechanisms of learning may be a key means of generating productive theories of international institutional change.