Belonging and inclusion in European–Russian relations: Alain Badiou and the truth of Europe

Abstract

This article ventures an alternative perspective on the century-old debate on Russia's ‘European identity’ by drawing on the conceptual apparatus of Alain Badiou's set-theoretical ontology. Increasingly influential in continental philosophy, Badiou's ontology is grounded in a fundamental distinction between belonging and inclusion, which complicates the dialectic of identity and difference and permits a greater variety of configurations in European–Russian relations. The application of Badiou's conceptual apparatus demonstrates that Russia is present in Europe without being represented in it; is its element without being its part. It is this ‘singular’ status of Russia that makes it an evental site of the entire European situation and thus the potential source of the unfolding of the European ‘truth procedure’. A Badiouan analysis of European–Russian relations successfully displaces the terms of the historical debate on Russia's Europeanness and shifts political thought from particularistic identity politics towards a radically universalist vision of politics as a truth procedure. This article concludes with the discussion of the ethico-political implications of this approach for the study of contemporary European politics.