Identities and Foreign Policies in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus: The Other Europes.

• Author: Kocak, Muhammet
• Position: Book review

By Stephen White and Valentina Feklyunina

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, 336 pages, [pounds sterling]73.00, ISBN: 9780333993613.

Reviewed by Muhammet Kocak, Florida International University

The newly independent countries across the post-Soviet space faced a set of ontological ambiguities following the implosion of the Soviet Union. In addition, the ethnic, ideological and religious mosaic of the post-Soviet space became more relevant to the political dynamics in the region.

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The UK Economic and Social Research Council's research program on 'One Europe or Several?' that began in 2006 was a timely effort and contribution. With the collective effort of Roy Allison, Margot Light and Stephen White, the project produced its first work in 2006. In Putin's Russia and the Enlarged Europe, the authors focused on the attitude of Russia toward the EU and NATO under Putin's second presidential term. To address another part of this very broad research agenda, Stephen White and Valentina Feklyunina analyze attitudes towards Europe taken by three of the more important post-Soviet countries in Identities and Foreign Policies in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. This review article evaluates the methodology and content of the latter book that came out of the project.

Identities and Foreign Policies in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus makes use of various methodological tools to analyze these countries' relations with and sense of belonging to Europe. To comprehend the degree of belonging to Europe in these three countries, the authors use a social constructivist approach (p. 21). In line with this, the authors focus on identity formation and the dynamics of 'othering' Europe in each state. White and Feklyunina identify three basic discourses for each country: Russia/Ukraine/Belarus at Europe, distinct from Europe, and at Europe but qualitatively different from it (pp. 25-26), then investigate which of these discourses prevails in each case. The study examines the construction of identities taking benefit from discourse analysis, and using sources ranging from newspaper articles to official documents. In addition, the authors make extensive use of surveys and findings from focus group interviews.

The book is composed of eight chapters. Before examining the attitudes in each country toward Europe, the authors analyze the contested idea of Europe itself. In the first chapter, they demonstrate how Europe proved hard to define, spatially and...