The Russian State, Eurasianism, and Civilisations in the Contemporary Global Political Economy

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/jglobfaul.2.1.0044
• Pages: 44-69
• Published date: 01 April 2014
• Date: 01 April 2014
• Author: Ray Silvius

Journal of Global Faultlines

ISSN: 2054-2089

Publication details, including instructions for authors:

http://www.keele.ac.uk/journal-globalfaultlines/

The Russian State, Eurasianism, and Civilisations in the

Contemporary Global Political Economy.

Ray Silviusa

a University of Winnipeg, Canada. E-mail: r.silvius@uwinnipeg.ca.

Journal of Global Faultlines/ Volume 2/ Issue 1/ April 2014, pp. 44-69.

Published online: 15 May 2014.

To cite this article:

Ray Silvius (2014) ‘The Russian State, Eurasianism, and Civilisations in the

Contemporary Global Political Economy’, Journal of Global Faultlines, 2(1), 44-69.

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Journal of Global Faultlines, 2014

Vol. 2, No. 1, 44-69.

44

The Russian State, Eurasianism, and Civilisations in the

Contemporary Global Political Economy

Ray Silvius

*

Abstract

This article demonstrates the emerging significance of concepts pertaining to culture and

civilisation in imagining the global political economy (GPE). It focuses on how certain Russian

thinkers and officials employ such concepts to critique American hegemony, to consolidate and

defend Russia’s statist political apparatus, and to obtain legitimacy for Russian state conduct both

at home and abroad. Russian debates over Eurasianism, civilisational difference and geopolitical

identity were common in the 1990s and have filtered into Putin era Russian state discourse about

Eurasian political and economic integration initiatives. Historicist analysis of world orders, a

method inspired by the work of Robert Cox, is employed here to understand how intersubjective

ideas derived from previous epochs are mobilised and transformed by social and political actors

for contemporary political projects. Organic intellectuals of the Russian state articulate and

legitimise state-sanctioned difference in an era in which once widely presumed integrative

globalisation and American hegemony are being questioned.

Introduction

During a post-Cold War era in which numerous academics and commentators have proclaimed

the existence of American hegemony, prevailing liberal democratic norms, and neoliberal

globalisation, the Russian state has been seeking to negate all three tendencies by insisting upon

the intrinsic virtues of Russian culture and civilisation. Along with scholars of international

studies in post-Soviet Russia, key Russian officials have been, to borrow a term from Morozov

(2009), ‘obsessed with identity.’ The 2008 Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation

1

(President of Russia 2008), for example, uses the language of cultural particularity to express

Russia’s improved position in international affairs and contemporary state priorities. The Concept

states that ‘It is for the first time in the contemporary history that global competition is acquiring

a civilisational dimension which suggests competition between different value systems and

development models within the framework of universal democratic and market economy

principles.’ Moreover, ‘As the constraints of the bipolar confrontation are being overcome, the

cultural and civilisational diversity of the modern world is increasingly in evidence. A religious

*

Dr Ray Silvius is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Winnipeg, Canada. H e can be

contacted at {r.silvius@uwinnipeg.ca}.