Snetkov, Aglaya; (2014) Negotiating the global security dilemma: Interpreting Russia’s security agenda. In: Bevir, M and Daddow, O and Hall, I, (eds.) Interpreting Global Security. (pp. 92-106). Routledge: Abingdon, UK.

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Abstract

With the proliferation of discussion about global order change in recent years, and accompanying predictions about a greater role for non-Western great powers, or the so-called rising powers, in questions of global governance and security (Alexandroff and Cooper 2010; Ikenberry and Wright 2008; Young 2010; Schweller 2011; Gu et al. 2008; Drezner 2007; Ikenberry 2008), the field of Security Studies is increasingly acknowledging that it is no longer sufficient to examine questions of global security primarily or exclusively through the experience of the West. There is growing recognition that it is empirically necessary to take into account the positions, views and interests of these nonWestern powers in study of international affairs (Zakaria 2008; Glosny 2009; Kappell 2011; Layne 2009; Whitman 2010; Flemes 2011). In turn, theoretical models and concepts should also take into account the contexts and actors within non-Western contexts (Bilgin 2010). The aim of this chapter is to shed light on the way in which one such non-Western power, Russia, has sought to conceptualize and make sense of the global security agenda in the post-Cold War era. Within the extensive body of literature assessing the directions, interests and priorities of contemporary Russian security policy, a bias for positivist realist perspectives continues to exist (see Wegren 2003; Kanet 2005). Indeed, many scholars have sought to characterize the Putin regime as ideologically promoting a more aggressive and largely anti-Western position in global security matters (Blank 2002). However, the interpretivist framework adopted here departs from existing constructivist literature on Russia’s foreign and security policy, which tends to focus primarily on Russia’s identity politics as the driving factor behind the evolution of Russia’s view of itself and the world (see Neumann 2008; Morozov 2008; Tsygankov 2005, 2007; Lomagin 2007; Kassianova 2001; Hopf 2005; Clunan 2009). Instead, as already outlined in Chapter 1 of the book, rather than focusing primarily on concepts such as language, identity, culture or ideas, the interpretivist perspective used here centres primarily on recapturing actors’ beliefs and meanings within their own contexts, and on investigating the process by which ideas and beliefs evolve across time, through the notion of traditions and dilemmas and the principle of ‘situated agency’ (Bevir and Rhodes 2006; Bevir et al. 2013).

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