Note that the main focus must then fall on how Russian state-building was represented by contemporary great powers. It follows that if we want to account for Russia's feeling of non-recognition, then we need to give an account of what the criteria for great powerhood have been, and then discuss where Russia has been found wanting. Historically, that means the European powers to the West of Russia. Recognition of Russia as a great power can only be given by great powers that are firmly established as such. This is because, if an identity claim is successful, it forms part of the horizon of the political debate rather than its substance. The persistence of the theme and the intensity of its presence in Russian identity politics suggests that Russia's quest for recognition as a great power has not been a successful one. Izvol'sky, ‘decline to the level of a second class power become an Asiatic state would be a major catastrophe for Russia’ ( Lieven 1983: 6). To quote the Russian Foreign Minister from 100 years ago, Aleksandr P. Indeed, this is an explicit, self-referential axiom in Russian identity politics, and has been so for a very long time. Footnote 2 Russia has to be a great power, or it will be nothing. When, in the early 1990s, leading politicians wrote newspaper articles about how they did not want to live in a ‘banana republic’ and when Russian and European politicians point to data in a wide range of fields listing Russia on a par with smaller powers, the message lends its power from the tacit assumption that a small-power Russia is an impossibility. Indeed, Russian nationalism congealed historically around this very issue. Footnote 1 This quest has taken on an importance that places it squarely at the centre of Russian identity politics. I conclude that, as long as Russia's rationality of government deviates from present-day hegemonic neo-liberal models by favouring direct state rule rather than indirect governance, the West will not recognize Russia as a fully fledged great power.įrom early contacts between Muscovy and the Holy Roman Empire through the rapid increase in contact during and following Peter the Great's reign and finally during the Soviet period, Russia has tried to be recognized by the leading European powers as their equal. Drawing on extant historical studies, part 2 presents empirical evidence that this factor was present and remains so in European representations of Russia. ![]() Russia's lack of social power to have its regime type accepted as being on a par with European ones is the key problem hampering Russia's quest for recognition. The inspiration for this move I take from Foucault's work on the emergence of governmentality. ![]() ![]() Part 1 presents the two traditional ways of defining great power (Weberian vs Durkhiemian), and suggests that, in order to account fully for the lack of recognition by established great powers, we need to add a third, concerning governance. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the issue has once again dominated the foreign policy debate. After the Napoleonic Wars, Russia thought it had acquired great power status, only to discover that, after the Crimean War, it had either never been firmly obtained or it had been lost. Russia's quest for the status of great power within the confines of the state system has been an ongoing concern since the time of Peter.
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