The Social Construction of Russia's Resurgence: Aspirations, Identity, and Security Interests

5. Post-Soviet Russia’s “Revolutionary Decade” and the Creation of National Identity

FIVE Post-Soviet Russia’s“Revolutionary Decade”and the Creation of National Identity From the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 to Vladimir Putin ’s reelection as president in 2004, Russian debates on national identity—and Russian foreign policy—swung from warmly embracing the West and the United States to heatedly rebuking them. Russian foreign policy moved between Russia’s incorporation into Western global structures and talk of a new Cold War. Western analysts struggled to understand a seemingly incoherent Russian foreign policy.1 As Scott Parrish wrote, “It is not at all clear what the goals of Russian foreign policy . . . are—or whether Russia has a coherent foreign policy at all.”2 At the outset of this period, an initially dominant Western national selfimage advocating rapid assimilation into the West fell from grace. Analysts in the West and in Russia feared a “Weimar Russia” and the dominance of revanchist national self-images advocating confrontation with the West and restoration of the Russian and Soviet empires.3 Over the next ten years, political struggles over Russia’s post-Soviet national identity —its political purpose and international status in the post–Cold War world—resulted in the delegitimization of Western and national restorationist self-images and eventual settlement on statist national self-images as the most legitimate alternative. Aspirational Constructivism and Correspondence Tests of Legitimacy Chapters 3 and 4 explored the aspirational constructivist expectations that political elites would develop national self-images and identity man101 agement strategies offering new bases for national self-esteem when previous identities are challenged and that these national self-images produce behavioral orientations toward cooperation, competition, and confrontation . The final aspirational constructivist proposition concerns the process or selection mechanism by which one of these candidate national identities, along with its attendant definition of the national interest, comes to dominate its competitors. It is the proposition that a correspondence process of elite legitimacy tests determines which national self-image becomes dominant. The expectation is that national self-images that pass correspondence tests of historical and effective legitimacy are most likely to dominate the political discourse and come to act as “the” national identity and define national interests. Correspondence with Russian Historical Aspirations: Historical Legitimacy Tests Chapter 3 highlighted how Russian political elites shared one common historical aspiration: to attain the status of a modern and distinctive great power. Aspirational constructivism anticipates that Russian national selfimages that are congruent with the historical aspiration to regain this status will be more persuasive than those that are not. This should be particularly true in times of change; during such times, if historical and effective legitimacy conflict, aspirational constructivism expects historical aspirations regarding the self to matter more than the “self-in-context”—that is, effective legitimacy—in shaping identity and interests. During more stable times, aspirational constructivism expects the self-in-context to carry equal weight in determining the legitimacy of national self-images. (The plausibility of this expectation is a subject for future research, as the conditions of this study clearly reflect a period of massive change.) With respect to post-Soviet Russia, aspirational constructivism expects Russian political elites to apply correspondence tests of historical legitimacy —history tests—to national self-images and their attendant identity management strategies and to find unpersuasive those that downplay or reject Russia’s historical status as a great power. Russian political elites should be drawn to national self-images that promote Russia’s positive distinctiveness and great power status. 102 THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF RUSSIA'S RESURGENCE Correspondence between Self-Images and the Self-in-Context: Effective Legitimacy Tests The correspondence process of legitimacy-testing at the heart of aspirational constructivism focuses not just on the impact of history on identity formation but also on the self-in-context—how the self perceives its ability to enact an identity “out in the real world.”4 Here the question revolves around whether a national self-image can be “verified” or effectively enacted in current conditions—whether it can pass a “efficacy test,” in aspirational constructivist terminology. Aspirational constructivism therefore expects that if Russian national self-images cannot pass efficacy tests —if they are seen as incapable of being actualized or effectively enhancing national self-esteem in the conditions Russians presently face—they should be unpersuasive to Russian political elites and not become the dominant identity. In particular, aspirational constructivism anticipates that if Russian political...