Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 22:4 (2023) ► pp.438–457
 

Mearsheimer, Putin, ideology, and the war in Ukraine

A political discourse analysis

ORCID logo | University of Nottingham

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.

Keywords: Mearsheimer, offensive-realism, Putin, great power, ideology, discourse, prediction, War, Ukraine
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
Published online: 9 May 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.22112.hug
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.Google Scholar
Tooze, Adam
2022 “John Mearsheimer and the dark origins of realism.” The New Statesman, March 8, 2022.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Feng, Huiyun
2009 China’s Strategic Culture and Foreign Policy Decision-Making: Confucianism, Leadership and War. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Freeden, Michael
1994 “Political concepts and ideological morphology”. The Journal of Political Philosophy, 2(2): 140–164. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1996 Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2003 Ideology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 “After the Brexit referendum: Revisiting populism as an ideology”. Journal of Political Ideologies, 22(1): 1–11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frenkel, Sheera and Stuart A. Thompson
2022 “How Russia and Right-Wing America Converged on War in Ukraine. March 23” The New York Times.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael K. A.
1994 An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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.Google Scholar
1996 Emancipation(s). London: Verso.Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto and Chantal Mouffe
1985 Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Leader Maynard, Jonathan
2019 “Ideology and armed conflict.” Journal of Peace Research. 56(5): 635–649. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
2014 “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusion That Provoked Putin.” Foreign Affairs. September/October: 1–12.Google Scholar
Owen, John M.
2010 The Clash of Ideas in World Politics: Transnational Networks, States and Regime Change, 1510–2010. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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].
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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].
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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.Google Scholar
Suslov, Mikhail
2018 “Russian World” Concept: Post-Soviet Geopolitical Ideology and the Logic of “Spheres of Influence”.” Geopolitics, 23(2): 330–353. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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.Google Scholar
1997 “What is political discourse analysis?” Belgian Journal of Linguistics 11(1): 11–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1998 Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. London: Sage.Google Scholar
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006 “Politics, Ideology and Discourse”. In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, ed. by Ron Asher, 728–740. Amsterdam: Elsevier. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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).