The foreign policy debate in Russia of the 1990s: An analysis of Russian security discourse

This study represents a culturally sensitive foreign policy analysis (FPA) by focusing on specific Russian theoretical thinking regarding national interests and security dilemmas. The study focused on the discursive part of Russian political space in order to trace and comprehend changes in Russian foreign policy in the 1990–1999 period. Many authors throughout the 1990s noted visible changes in Russian foreign policy from its position as a western ally in 1991–92 toward its more assertive position in 1995–96 and its flexible isolationist position in 1998–99. The shifts in Russian foreign policy behavior that occurred during this period were traced through the changes in the foreign policy debate regarding the examples of unfolding events in “near abroad” and the former Yugoslavia. The basic departing point of the inquiry was built on Philip Lawrence's approach to the unity between participants and debate. This approach was implemented with reference to the issue of how the change in reality-defining assumptions could be found in the existing political elite discourses—text and speech. The use of discourse analysis allowed the incorporation of the culturally specific foundations of Russian foreign and security policy into a systematic method for evaluation that opens up space for understanding of culture-politics dynamics. The thesis addressed the link between ideas and institutions by presenting how ideas affected Russian foreign policy, or, more specifically, how these ideas were institutionalized. In order to trace the link between ideas and institutions specific attention was placed on the analysis of Russian security discourse through the debate that took place among the various “schools of thought.” In the case of Russia the category of “schools of thought” has a twofold ontological nature—combining ideas and institutions. “Schools of thought” represent the most influential social movements that shape institutional public policies while at the same time they represent cultural traits and sets of ideas that shape the thinking of those movements. A special emphasis in this thesis was placed on the Russian 19th century heritage of ideas due to its partial neglect in contemporary analysis of Russian foreign policy. Discourse analysis indicated that ideas put forward by the 19th century “schools of thought” had a strong influence on the foreign policy debate and security thinking and public policy choices in contemporary Russia. The core issues of Russian security discourse debated in the 1990s were as those in the 19 th century: the aim to situate Russian identity on an East-West scale; the aim to situate the security paradigm on an isolation-integration scale vis-à-vis the West; and the aim to situate prosperity on an individual-collective scale. Thus, the monitoring of “schools of thought,” as indicated in the works of Andrei Tsygankov, proved to be a better indicator of competing concepts of Russian national interest and security concerns than focusing solely on the state institutions or major political parties.