Russian Theory of International Relations.doc

Russian Theory of International RelationsAndrei P. Tsygankov, Pavel A. TsygankovSan Francisco State University, Moscow State UniversityIn International Studies Encyclopedia, edited by Robert A. Denemark. Vol. X, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, 2010, pp. 6375-6387.IntroductionRussian society has changed dramatically since the Soviet disintegration, and the emergence of new theories of international relations heralded this change. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union and its officially sanctioned “Marxist” social science, Russian scholars have been making intellectual headway in adjusting to new realities. Analyzing the emerging Russian IR studies helps us answer some of the key questions about Russia. How does the new Russia see itself in the world? How does it perceive the new international environment? Which social and political institutions does it see as appropriate to develop after the end of the Cold War? These are the questions that are at the heart of the new Russian IR scholarship, and these are the questions that continue to drive Western scholarship about the new Russia. The recent revival of the sociology of knowledge tradition in international studies has drawn scholarly attention to the fact that IR scholarship is grounded in certain social conditions and may reflect cultural premises. Historically the tradition is rooted in work by Karl Mannheim (1936) and Max Weber, among others. (For contemporary scholarship focusing on social foundations of knowledge, see Hoffmann 1977; Weaver 1998; Crawford and Jarvis 2001.) In particular, it has become more common to view international relations as a branch of research that often reflects political, ideological, and epistemological biases of Western, particularly American, civilization (Hoffmann 1977; Crawford and Jarvis 2001). Recently scholars from across the globe have attempted to understand IR from the perspective of various peripheries – Asian (Callahan 2004a; Acharya and Buzan 2007), East European (Guzzini 2007), Latin American (Tickner 2003), and Russian (Tsygankov and Tsygankov 2007; Tsygankov 2008) – suggesting the emergence of a new subdiscipline of comparative IR theory (Callahan 2004b). In addition, some well-known and still widely practiced classifications of IR theory in the West, such as realism, liberalism, and critical theory or constructivism (Viotti and Kauppi 1998; Weber 2005Not in refs. Please supply details.; Nau 2006), are shaped by theorists’ ideological preferences. As they each emphasize concepts of balance of power, international institutions, and human exploitation/emancipation in their research, these theories reflect broader ideological concerns about Self/Other relationships. Realists, for example, tend to perceive the rise of alternative communities or Other as threatening and recommend that Self prepare to defend its security. On the other hand, many Western liberals, while recognizing the increasingly globalized character of world politics, maintain an image of a progressive assertion of Self’s values and overlook the forces of identity and diversity associated with the Other. Some critical theorists too have a tendency to oversimplify the Self/Other relationships (Shani 2008). In this essay we argue that Russian theory of international relations is nationally specific, yet it is also grounded in three main intellectual traditions of presenting Self, Other, and their relationships. We refer to these traditions as Westernism, Statism, and Civilizationism because they each emphasize categories of the West, the independent state, and the distinct civilization as their desired identifications of the Russian Self. Although the Russian intellectual traditions have recovered their strengths after the Soviet disintegration, they have their roots in the history of Russia’s relations with Europe and the nineteenth century debates about the “Russian idea.” We therefore adopt a broad definition of IR theory, viewing it as a systematically developed image of the world that is grounded in a local cultural history, rather than in evolution of the Western social science. The essay is organized as follows. We first review the nature of Russian historical intellectual debates and the impact of the Soviet legacy on discussions of international relations in Russia. We then discuss some post-Soviet discussions within the field, focusing on theories of international system, regional order, and foreign policy. Although Russian IR cannot be fully reduced to these areas of research, they remain the most developed. (For other overviews of the Russian discipline of international studies, see Sergounin 2000; Bogaturov et al. 2002; Shakleyina 2002; Lebedeva 2003; 2004; Torkunov 2004; A. Tsygankov and P. Tsygankov 2004; 2006; Kokoshin and Bogaturov 2005.) We conclude by reflecting on future directions of Russian international studies and the dialectic of global and local in development of IR theory.Thre。