Russia – a leading or a fading power? Students' geopolitical meta-narratives on Russia's role in the post-Soviet space

Abstract

This article explores the construction of Russia's role in the post-Soviet space on the popular level of geopolitical culture. This empirical study is based on an interpretative analysis of open-ended survey responses of International Relations and Political Science students in Russian universities. The purpose of the article is twofold: first, to introduce the two main geopolitical meta-narratives constructed from students' responses, Russia as a leading power and Russia as a fading power; and second, to show how they resonate with the broader discursive field on Russian identity and policies in the post-Soviet space. I argue that the two meta-narratives tell us about both support and challenges posed against the elite level of geopolitical culture, and Russia's foreign policy in the post-Soviet space. They also show variation on how Russia's role is represented, as well as on the goals which Russia should have vis-à-vis this space. The ideal role of Russia would be that of integration leader, but students disagree on whether this is the actual role now, or whether this can ever be attained. Moreover, not all would even agree with aspiring for this role; instead, Russia should re-orientate its foreign policy as well as domestic policy.

Keywords:

• Russia
• geopolitical culture
• university students
• post-Soviet space
• foreign policy

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Anni Kangas, Saara Särmä, Pami Aalto, Hanna Smith, Tuomas Forsberg, and Lina Klymenko for valuable comments on earlier drafts. The earlier drafts of this article were also presented at the Annual Conference of the Finnish Political Science Association and the Congress of the Russian Society of Political Scientists in 2014. I also wish to thank the students who were willing to take part in my survey and those lecturers and administrators who facilitated my field work in Russian universities. In addition, I would like to thank my research assistant Julia Simpanen. Work on this article was supported by the Academy of Finland (project numbers 132839 and 138728), the University of Tampere, and the Academy of Finland's Centre of Excellence in Russian Studies: Choices of Russian Modernisation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. These building blocks could also be identified with A. J. Greimas’ actantial model (Törrönen 2000). First, who is identified as the subject – Russia or the others; what is represented as the object (goal) – e.g. integration, and finally, who/what phenomena are characterized as helpers and opponents – that is, those who are on “our” side, or on the “other” side, helping the subject to, or preventing it from, getting the object – Russia or the other post-Soviet states, “third parties.”

2. Universities in Barnaul, Chita, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Krasnoiarsk, Novosibirsk (2), Omsk, Tomsk, Tiumen, and Novosibirsk are the most important educational centers in Siberia.

3. The total number of surveyed students was 170, but 12 out of them did not reply to these two questions, the responses to which are analyzed here. In addition, I have excluded the responses of St Petersburg State University students because there were only four of them – two from IR and two from the geography program.

4. Na pervye chetire voprosy Vy mozhete otvetit’ v forme esse.

5. The responses were translated from Russian into English partly by the author and partly by a research assistant.

6. (1) Opishite, pozhaluista, kakimi Vy predstavliate otnosheniia Rossii so stranami SNG, Pribaltikoi i s Gruziei, to est’, s byvshimi chlenami SSSR? Kakova rol’ Rossii v postsovetskom prostranstve ili blizhem zarubezh'e? Kakoi ona dolzhna byt’? (2) Chto Vy dumaete o perspektivah etikh otnoshenii i roli Rossii na etoi territorii v budushchem?