Problem of Political Identity - The Meaning of Great Projects Politics in Contemporary Russia

Master's Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - Region: Russia, grade: A-, Central European University Budapest, language: English, abstract: The problem of political identity is one of the most topical issues in constructivist IR theory. The understanding of identity construction as well as the adequate interpretation of its foreign policy implications can help explain the meanings behind the actions of major international actors. The work deals with the problem of political identity in contemporary Russia, by engaging with and extending the temporal scope of the constructivist analysis, conducted by Ted Hopf in his book Social Construction of International Politics. It suggests that the great projects politics of contemporary Russia, which is linked to the specificity of its political identity and seems to be similar to that of the late-Soviet period, can, in fact, be better understood, if another work on Russian identity (The Ethics of Postcommunism: History and Social Praxis in Russia by Sergei Prozorov) is also taken into account. Hopf's analysis, while providing a valuable theoretical framework and linking the state's identity to the great power status, does not trace the evolution of the latter status and confines itself to two years of Russia's development, namely, 1955 and 1999. Prozorov's book, while thoroughly analyzing the identity of contemporary Russian state, is limited within the domestic realm and fails to address the idea of great power, which Hopf believes to be an integral part of Russian political discourse and which is possible to interpret, only if the analysis extends beyond national borders. The research incorporates Prozorov's theoretical contribution into the framework of Hopf, thus merging the mentioned approaches and making them applicable to the contemporary Russian condition, both domestically and within IR.