Back to the future: re-examining John Mearsheimer’s idea of hypernationalism in the context of the Russian–Ukrainian war

ABSTRACT

Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine is an opportunity for readdressing a crucial theoretical question: How to understand the role of hypernationalism in the run-up to war? Given the participation of Ukrainian ultranationalist militias and Russia’s goal of de-Nazifying Ukraine, a need emerges to provide a greater understanding of hypernationalism and its relation to this war’s origins. By going back to John Mearsheimer’s 1990 article ‘Back to the future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War’, this article examines Mearsheimer’s idea of hypernationalism and the problem of how states can signify other nations most negatively in the run-up to war. Drawing on a problem-driven strategy, it tackles this problem by applying ‘Essex School’ poststructuralist discourse theory. It argues that Ukrainian hypernationalism played a vital role in the genesis of this war, although not as a stable set of principles that possess a causal force but as a political subjectivity that the Russian government signified as a threat to its national identity. I use this distinction to theorise the role of hypernationalism by examining Russian official statements about Ukrainian neo-Nazism.

KEYWORDS:

• Hypernationalism
• national identity
• Russia
• Ukraine
• war

Acknowledgment

I want to thank Miguel de Cervantes University’s Research program, Dr Noof Aldosari, Dr Attasit Sittidumrong, my former colleagues of the Research Seminar at Tec de Monterrey, Campus Puebla, Dr Alexandra Jima and Dr Jose Angel Alcantara. I also want to thank my research assistants Vlad Rogel and Alonso Padilla from the Government Department, University of Chile.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Mearsheimer attaches causality to the material aspect of world politics and nonmaterial elements, such as lies, nationalism, and hypernationalism. For instance, Mearsheimer argues that lies comprise calculated actions pursuing international outcomes; this is why leaders lie to the people in the run-up to wars (Mearsheimer 2011).

2. I say ‘in part’ because there are more elements dislocating Russia’s national identity. Some of them are identified in this work as the dislocation of Russia’s world power identity. However, this study does not aim to develop a nosology of Russian identity diseases.

3. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this article sheds light on a controversial issue for Western readers by showing and analysing empirical evidence about the dismissed but critical element of Ukrainian neo-Nazis.

4. This article’s reliance on Russian sources is limited to translations of official speeches published by the Russian government and the United Nations. Thus, I acknowledge the limitations of excluding from the analysis other Russian-language material.

5. See Treaty between The United States of America and the Russian Federation on security guarantees, available at https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790818/?lang=en.

6. Putin asserts that this treaty was sent to US President Joseph Biden and NATO’s authorities. See Vladimir Putin’s annual news conference, available at en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67438.

7. Western conventional wisdom and the views of Volodymyr Zelensky’s government attempt to objectify the cause of this conflict as what could be defined as the evil nature of Vladimir Putin and his regime materialising in the alleged Russian desire to resuscitate the Soviet expansionist agenda. Gotz calls this viewpoint the ‘revisionist Russia approach’ (Gotz 2016, 251–253; see also Stoner 2023). An example in this regard is President Zelensky’s speech before the US Congress in which he stated that ‘we are fighting for the values of Europe and the world, sacrificing our lives in the name of the future […] The evil must be punished immediately’ (Zelensky 2022). Referring to Russia, President Biden stated that ‘freedom will always triumph over tyranny’ (Biden 2022). In a joint statement, NATO member states reaffirmed their support for the Ukrainian people, ‘to help them resist Russian malign influence and strengthen their resilience’ (NATO 2022).

8. Likewise, Mearsheimer has ridiculed this type of argument by depicting the US strategy as the desire to topple ‘regimes all over the world not simply because we like democracy but because we believe that whoever gets elected will be pro-Western’ (Mearsheimer 2015).

9. It is also worth noting that this example represents a masculine exaltation of the defence of the Ukrainian nation. Thus, it is an expression of hypermasculinity. According to Maruska, hypermasculinity is ‘a sensationalist approval of elements of masculinity, such as rigid gender roles, vindictive and militarized reactions, and obsession with order, power, and control’ (Maruska 2010, 239).

10. Mouffe differentiates the political from politics, which is ‘the ensemble of practices and institutions whose aim is to organize human coexistence’. See (Mouffe 2013, XII).

11. In recent years, there has been an incipient interest in applying this approach to international politics. For instance, a symposium in the New Political Science (Stengel and Nabers 2019)

12. http://en.kremlin.ru/.

13. Kolomoisky claims to be the political godfather of Volodymyr Zelensky and the financier of his presidential campaign. See (Institute 2019; Roman, Beasley, and Parmelee 2021; Troianovski 2020).

14. The tweet says ‘#UNGA76 adopted RU-initiated resolution “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism, and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of #racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related #intolerance” with 130 votes in favor, 2 against, and 49 abstentions’. December 16, 2021. Available at https://twitter.com/RussiaUN/status/1471589093305954310?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw.

15. See the Resolution Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance: resolution/adopted by the General Assembly. Available at https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3951466?In=en.

16. See Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. ‘Press Release on the Adoption by the Third Committee of the Un General Assembly’s 76th Session of a Resolution on Combating the Glorification of Nazis’. Moscow, 2021.

17. In a joint press conference with the UN Secretary-General, Lavrov blamed the US for NATO’s expansion, adding that they encouraged the Ukrainian authorities’ decisions to promote anti-Russian laws. ‘At the same time, laws were adopted to formalize the Nazi theory and practices’. Lavrov also accused the Ukrainian government of legitimising neo-Nazi battalions, such as Azov, which ‘sports swastikas and emblems and symbols of [German] Nazi battalions (Waffen-SS)’ (Lavrov 2022b).

18. The day after the invasion, Lavrov brought to the fore the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and signed between Ukraine, Russia, the US, and the United Kingdom on the guaranties that Ukraine should not have access to nuclear weapons. Referring to the breach of this Memorandum, which would result if Ukraine joined NATO, Lavrov stated that this treaty ‘says nothing about a commitment to recognize anti-government coups and meet a regime halfway that announced genocide against part of its own people by objecting to the Russian language, Russian education, and many other things that belong to Russian culture and are an inalienable part of Ukrainian society’ (Lavrov 2022c).

19. The law was published on May 18th, 2021. The recognised minorities are the Crimean Tatars, Crimean Karaites, and Krymchaks.

20. This bond is also extensible to Belarus. Altogether, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus constitute a ‘triune nation’ (See President of Russia 2022e).

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Claudio Coloma

Claudio Coloma is a PhD in Ideology and Discourse Analysis from the University of Essex, a Research Fellow at Miguel de Cervantes University and a Research Associate at Fundacion Chile 21.