Russia’s Foreign Policy Identity Ideas and Their Manifestation in Foreign Policy 2012–2022. Summary of the Doctoral Thesis

Abstract

The Doctoral Thesis titled “Russia’s Foreign Policy Identity Ideas and Their Manifestation in Foreign Policy 2012–2022” conducts the identification of ideas shaping Russian foreign policy identity during the specified period, determining their historical and substantive dynamics, as well as identifying the causal relationships of these ideas with the state's implemented foreign policy. The Doctoral Thesis aims to identify the ideas shaping Russian foreign policy identity and their manifestation in foreign policy from 2012 to 2022. Based on the speeches made by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin during this period, it identifies the ideas that have shaped Russia’s foreign policy identity and explores their causal relationships with Russia's foreign policy direction and specific actions within the international system. To achieve the objective of the Thesis, the following research questions are posed: 1. What ideas shape Russia’s foreign policy identity from 2012 to 2022? 2. What substantive transformations have occurred in the ideas shaping Russia’s foreign policy identity from a historical perspective? 3. What are the identifiable models of causal relationships between ideas that constitute identity and foreign policy actions in Russia from 2012 to 2022? The theoretical and methodological framework is grounded in poststructuralist and constructivist approaches to international relations. The synthesis of these approaches provides a research framework for the exploration of Russia’s foreign policy identity in a dynamic perspective, examining the manifestation of its constituent ideas in foreign policy and enabling the determination of the development of ideas that make up the foreign policy identity over time and their causal relationships with Russia's actions in the international system. Applying a three-level discourse analysis research approach, it is concluded that the ideas shaping Russia’s foreign policy identity include moral superiority, economic growth, multipolarity, uniqueness of civilisation, multiculturalism, and sovereignty, which are functionally applied to the construction of Russia’s great power, exceptionalist, and survivalist identities. Historical changes in the substantive ideas that shape identity have occurred as a result of adapting to objective changes in the international system. Additionally, a significant factor in the changes in historical forms of ideas has been the consolidation of internal discursive power and practical political power, and information space within Putin's autocratic regime. The most visible causality of the identified ideas is observed in Russia's perspective on the functioning and its actions in the international system aimed to initiate changes in those mentioned above. Additionally, resistance to the perceived US hegemony is one of the formative foreign policy conceptions, supported by ideas forming the foreign policy identity.