How the EU and Russia Narrate the World

Struggling for Recognition
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-86482-2
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 244 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 534 g

Reihe: New International Relations

In times of increasing challenges to ‘the Western idea,’ this book illuminates how Russian and EU foreign policy discourses interact. While official Russian and EU articulations on issues of sovereignty, human rights and the shared neighbourhood diverge greatly, they are not articulated in isolation but are entangled and condition each other. To understand this entanglement, this book approaches the relationship between Russia and the EU as an intersubjective one, a social context where diverging interpretations of the world struggle for hegemony. Its theoretical framework marries poststructuralist thought with insights from critical approaches to Hegelian recognition dialectics. Based on an extensive and systematic empirical discourse analysis of Russian and EU foreign policy texts, this study draws a detailed picture of the intensifying discursive dynamics accompanying the deteriorating relationship between Brussels and Moscow. It shows how neither the EU’s nor Russia’s foreign policy articulation has changed substantially. The interaction pattern continues to be an asymmetrical one with Russia’s articulations much more conditioned by the EU’s discourse than vice versa. The book thus argues that the EU is more independent in sovereignly articulating an interpretation of the world, whereas Russia continues to face constraints in the formulation of an autonomous political project. With its novel and innovative conceptual framework, this book furthers the theoretical scholarship on poststructuralism in international relations. It addresses all scholars interested in poststructuralist enquiries and will be of great value to students and scholars of Russian foreign policy and the EU.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate, Undergraduate Advanced, and Undergraduate Core

Autoren/Hrsg.

Baumann, Mario

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Internationale Organisationen und Institutionen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction (approx. 3-4k words, including footnotes)

2. Chapter: Situating the book

3. Chapter: A conceptual framework for discursive interaction

4. Chapter: Capturing discursive interaction

5. Chapter: Contested events in EU-Russia relations

6. Chapter: Analytical discussion

7. Chapter: Russia narrating its war on Ukraine
8. Chapter: Conclusions

Über Autor(innen)

Mario Baumann is Research Fellow and Project Manager at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). His work focuses on EU-Russia relations, Russian foreign policy, Russian civil society and European security.