Constructivism’s Micro-Foundations: Aspirations, Social Identity Theory, and Russia’s National Interests / American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, August 30 - September 2, 2012
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Authors
Clunan, Anne L.
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2012
Date
August 30 - September 2, 2012
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Abstract
Russia's national interests have not been defined on the basis of conventional cost-benefit
assessments, perceptions of material threat, or the identities projected onto Russia by other
countries. Aspirations to regain the international great power status that Russians believe their
country enjoyed during the tsarist and Soviet past were critical to the creation of its present
national identity and national security interests. This paper asks how Russian elites came to have
these national interests in social competition for great power status. In trying to explain how
national interests are created, I present a novel aspirational constructivist approach that draws
heavily on social psychology to answer three fundamental questions: What are the sources of
national identity? Why do multiple identities come into contention? How does one of these
candidate national identities come to dominate the others and become "social fact," acting as
"the" national identity that defines a country's core national interests? In developing the answers,
we gain a better understanding of how foreign “others” enter into the definition of Russia’s
national identity and the formation of its interests.
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Working Paper
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SSRN-id2106681
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National Security Affairs
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Paper delivered at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA.
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This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.