Russia as a Great Power and the Quest for International Recognition
Russia as a Great Power and the Quest for International Recognition

Summary/Abstract: The article analyzes the quest for international validation of Russia’s great power selfimage, by drawing from the insightful literatures on state identity recognition and ontological security. After mentioning the main Russian foreign policy schools and their convergence on Russia as a great power in global affairs, the discussion unfolds why this ongoing journey has been particularly problematic. It unpacks the elusive notion of “great power”, which goes beyond achieving a set of somewhat objective conditions. A state’s great power status heavily relies on the identity verification of salient external audiences or already established great powers. Faced with nonrecognition, elite discourses under the Putin administration have gradually securitized state identity. Russia’s great power self-image has been recently redefined to challenge the absence of international recognition, indicating a high level of identity anxiety or ontological insecurity, with troubling effects on the state’s foreign policy conduct.

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