Mearsheimer, Putin, ideology, and the war in Ukraine
A political discourse analysis
This article questions the offensive realist explanation of the war in Ukraine found in the work of John Mearsheimer. It argues that Mearsheimer’s failure to take seriously predispositional factors means his account of the war offers an incomplete basis for discerning motives, predicting the conflict’s evolution, or responding to Russian aggression. To address this deficit and explain how ideological beliefs and meanings expressed in discourse are shaping Russia’s prosecution of the war, the article sets out an interpretive framework that draws on insights into armed conflict and ideology from the likes of Michael Freeden and Jonathan Leader Maynard as well as contributions to Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) primarily in the work of Teun van Dijk. To explore the Russian ideological and discursive aspects at play in the Ukraine war, the article fixes its analytical gaze on an address delivered by Putin to the Russian nation on February 24, 2022.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Theoretical framework
- 3.Ideology
- 4.Re-ideologisation and the war in Ukraine
- 5.Putin’s Speech
- 5.1Function
- 5.2Reactionism
- 5.3Great power status
- 5.4Liberal values
- 5.5Russian World
- 6.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
-
References
References (57)
References
Abioye, Taiwo. 2009. “Typology of Rhetorical Questions as a Stylistic Device in Writing.” The International Journal of Language Society and Culture 291: 1–8.
Tooze, Adam. 2022. “John Mearsheimer and the dark origins of realism.” The New Statesman, March 8, 2022.
Berliner Zeitung. 2023. “The truth will set us free: interview with Roger Waters.” Berliner Zeitung, February 4, 2023. [URL] (accessed 12 February 2023).
Blommaert, Jan and Jef Verschueren. 1998. Debating Diversity: Analysing the Discourse of Tolerance. London and New York: Routledge.
Borger, Julian. 2023. “Ukraine denounces Roger Waters as another brick in the wall of Russian propaganda.” The Guardian, February 6, 2023. [URL] (accessed 14 February 2023).
Casula, Philip. 2020. “Russia’s Modern Foreign Policy Tools in Crimea and Syria.” In Russia in the Changing International System, ed. by Emer Parlar Dal and Emre Ersen, 205–225. New York City: Springer International Publishing.
Chotiner, Isaac. 2022. “Why John Mearsheimer Blames the US for the Crisis in Ukraine.” The New Yorker, March 1, 2023. [URL] (accessed 2 August 2022).
Collier, Paul and Anke Hoeffler. 2001. Greed and grievance in civil war. Washington, DC: World Bank Working Papers.
Douthat, Ross. 2022. “They Predicted the Ukraine War. But did they still get it wrong?” The New York Times, March 9, 2022. [URL] (accessed [URL]).
Drozdova, Oksana and Paul Robinson. 2019. “A Study of Vladimir Putin’s Rhetoric”. Europe-Asia Studies, 71(5): 805–823.
Feng, Huiyun. 2009. China’s Strategic Culture and Foreign Policy Decision-Making: Confucianism, Leadership and War. London and New York: Routledge.
Freeden, Michael. 1994. “Political concepts and ideological morphology”. The Journal of Political Philosophy, 2(2): 140–164.
Freeden, Michael. 1996. Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Freeden, Michael. 2003. Ideology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Freeden, Michael. 2013. “The morphological analysis of ideology”. In The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, ed. by Michael Freeden and Marc Stears. 115–138. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Freeden, Michael. 2017. “After the Brexit referendum: Revisiting populism as an ideology”. Journal of Political Ideologies, 22(1): 1–11.
Frenkel, Sheera and Stuart A. Thompson. 2022. “How Russia and Right-Wing America Converged on War in Ukraine. March 23” The New York Times.
Gardey, Ellie. 2022. “Conservative Isolationists Gather in D.C. to Push Against U.S. Escalation in Ukraine.” The American Spectator, March 31. 2022. [URL] [accessed 9 February 2023].
Haas, Mark. 2005. The Ideological Origins of Great Power Politics, 1789–1989. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Halliday, Michael K. A. 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
Kazharski, Aliaksei and Silvia Macalova. 2020. “Democracies: “Sovereign” and “Illiberal”. The Russian-Hungarian Game of Adjectives and Its Implications for Regional Security”. Journal of Regional Security. 15(2): 235–262.
Kings Politics. 2022. “Crisis in Ukraine. Professor John Mearsheimer.” Streamed live on February 15, 2022. YouTube video, 1:21:47. [URL] [accessed 5 February 2023].
Kirchick, James. 2022. “How the Anti-war Camp Went Intellectually Bankrupt.” The Atlantic. September 29. 2022. [URL] [accessed 1 February 2023].
Kukharskyy, Bohdan, Anastassia Fedyk, Yuriy Gorodnichenko and Llona Sologoub. 2023. “Open Letter to Noam Chomsky (and Other Like-Minded Intellectuals) on the Russia-Ukraine War.” May 29. 2023. [URL] [accessed 16 February 2023].
Laclau, Ernesto. 1990. New Reflections on the Revolution of our Time. London: Verso.
Laclau, Ernesto. 1996. Emancipation(s). London: Verso.
Laclau, Ernesto and Chantal Mouffe. 1985. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso.
Leader Maynard, Jonathan. 2019. “Ideology and armed conflict.” Journal of Peace Research. 56(5): 635–649.
Lister, Tim. 2022. “Ukranian cultural landmarks suffer fresh blow as another museum is hit.” CNN, May 10, 2022. [URL] (accessed 1 August 2022).
Matu, Peter M. 2008. Transitivity as a Tool for Ideological Analysis. Journal of Third World Studies. 25(1): 199–211.
Mclaren-Kennedy, Peter. 2022. “French intelligence chief fired over Ukraine war failure.” Euroweekly, April 1, 2022. [URL] (accessed 9 February 2023).
Mearsheimer, John. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W.W. Norton.
Mearsheimer, John. 2014. “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusion That Provoked Putin.” Foreign Affairs. September/October: 1–12.
Owen, John M. 2010. The Clash of Ideas in World Politics: Transnational Networks, States and Regime Change, 1510–2010. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Pisciotta, Barbara. 2020. “Russian revisionism in the Putin era: An overview of post-communist military interventions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria.” Rivista Italiana Di Scienza Politica. 50 (1): 87–106.
Putin, Vladimir. 2021. “Article by Vladimir Putin: On the Historical Unity of Russia and Ukraine.” Official Internet Resources of the President of Russia. [URL] [accessed 2 August 2022].
Putin, Vladimir. 2022. “Address by the President of the Russian Federation.” February 24, 2022. Official Internet Resources of the President of Russia. [URL] [accessed 2 August 2022].
Reuters. 2023. “Ukraine says Italy’s Berlusconi spreading Russian propaganda.” February 13, 2023. [URL] [accessed 14 February 2023].
Sanín, Francisco Gutierrez and Elisabeth Jean Wood. 2014. “Ideology in civil war: Instrumental adoption and beyond.” Journal of Peace Research. 51(2): 213–226.
Sayers, Freddie. 2022. “John Mearsheimer: We’re playing Russian roulette.” Unherd, November, 2022. [URL] [accessed 01/02/2023].
Schwarz, Jon. 2022. “No Russia didn’t get its propaganda from John Mearsheimer.” The Intercept, March 6, 2020. [URL] [accessed 9 February 2023].
Sikorski, Radislaw. 2022. “The Munk Debate- The Russian War.” Streamed live on May 13, 2022. YouTube video. 1:36:10. [URL] [accessed 2 August 2022].
Snyder, Timothy. 2022a. “Nazis, Nukes and NATO Or: what the Russo-Ukranian War is Not About.” Thinking about …, July 21, 2022. [URL] [accessed 02 August 2022].
Snyder, Timothy. 2022b. “Russia’s genocide handbook: The evidence of atrocity and of intent mounts.” Thinking about …, April 8, 2022. [URL] [accessed 2 August 2022].
Sowińska, Agnieszka. 2013. “A critical discourse approach to the analysis of values in political discourse: The example of freedom in President Bush’s State of the Union addresses (2001–2008).” Discourse & Society 24(6): 792–809.
Stavrakakis, Yannis. 2000. “On the emergence of Green ideology: the dislocation factor in Green politics.” In Discourse Theory and Political Analysis, ed. by David, Howarth D., Atletta Norval, Atletta J. Norval and Yannis Stavrakakis, 100–119. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Suslov, Mikhail. 2018. “Russian World” Concept: Post-Soviet Geopolitical Ideology and the Logic of “Spheres of Influence”.” Geopolitics, 23(2): 330–353.
UChicago. 2015. “Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer.” Streamed live on September 25, 2015. YouTube video. 1:14:15. [URL] [accessed 9 February 2023].
Van Brussel, Leen, Nico Carpentier and Benjamin De Cleen. (2019). Communication Discourse Theory: Collected works of the Brussels Discourse Theory Group. Bristol UK/Chicago USA: Intellect.
van Dijk, Teun A. 1995. “Discourse analysis as ideology analysis”. In Language and Peace, ed. by Anita Wenden and Christina Schaffner, 17–34. Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing.
van Dijk, Teun A. 1998. Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. London: Sage.
van Dijk, Teun A. 2002. “Political discourse and political cognition”. In Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic approaches to political discourse, ed. by Paul Chilton and Christina Schaffner, 203–237. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
van Dijk, Teun A. 2006. “Politics, Ideology and Discourse”. In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, ed. by Ron Asher, 728–740. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Wakefield, Lily. 2021. “Vladimir Putin solidifies Russia’s same-sex marriage ban for generations to come.” PinkNews, April 7, 2021. [URL] (accessed 2 August 2022).
Wood, Reed M. and Jakana L. Thomas. 2017. Women on the frontline: Rebel group ideology and women’s participation in violent rebellion. Journal of Peace Research, 54(1): 31–46.
Zelenskyy, Volodymyr. 2022. “Ukraine to consider severance of diplomatic relations with Russia and other effective steps to respond to recent events.” President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Official Website, February 22, 2022. [URL] (accessed 7 February 2023).
Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
Foley, James & Vladimir Unkovski-Korica
2024.
Decentring the West? Civilizational solidarity and (de)colonization in theories of the Russia-Ukraine War.
Globalizations ► pp. 1 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.