Thread by @DrRadchenko

A first-rate piece here by Igor Gretskiy who contradicts arguments put forward by me and also my St. Petersburg colleague Ivan Kurilla concerning the viability of Russia's integration in Euro-Atlantic institutions in the early 1990s. 👇🏿

https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1392477084241600513

I would broadly agree with Igor's critique to the effect that we need to understand Yeltsin's actions as motivated primarily by the imperative of maintaining political power. The legitimation discourse of "confronting the West" can be said to have contributed to this purpose.

An open question is why that narrative of confrontation was the one that ultimately prevailed. Was it because, as Igor argues, the Russians were not open to 'non-imperial' narratives or was it because door to the West was closed, making the imperial narrative the default option.

My guess is that it was probably a bit of both. I would encourage Igor to continue his obviously productive investigation by writing up a full-fledged scholarly article on the subject. My own article on is here: tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108… (Also see links in the thread above).

One question in particular I'd like to see theorised more concerns the relationship between external and internal legitimation,i.e. to what extent Russia's external position in the world (as a foe or friend of the West) contributes to legitimation of the domestic political elite.

I should add perhaps that took place in the 1990s was a negotiation of Russia's identity, which was a process that involved external actors. Thus Russia emerged as the enemy of the West because this "internalised" identity was also supported externally.

At the risk of drifting into deep waters, I'd say why we really need here is to understand how identity negotiation works in psychology, perhaps by going back to classic work by R.D. Laing etc, because there are a lot of interesting parallels. Another article right in there!

Of course, such work is already being done by IR theorists, and historians like me are sometimes slow to catch on. What's clear is that the 1990s is a key period for understanding where we are today, so I see it as an emerging field of scholarly enquiry.