Russia and the liberal order: from contestation to antagonism

Abstract

Abstract Russia's large-scale war against Ukraine is rightfully viewed as a major violation of the fundamental norms of international society. It creates a problem for the literature on the liberal international order, which used to treat Russia as engaging in contestation—a legitimate practice which, according to some accounts, constitutes an essential aspect of any order. This article aims to develop a conceptual frame for the radical rupture resulting from the war by describing it as an expansion of antagonism. In the post-structuralist theory employed here, antagonism is always present at the margins of any order as a daily experience of failure, of the impossibility of total ordering. Russia's war started from the rhetorical negation of Ukraine's existence as a sovereign nation, but expanded into an antagonism that eventually threatens to ‘cancel’ Russia itself. To explore this case conceptually and empirically, I approach international order as a set of performative practices unfolding within a hegemonic structure. Russia is not alone in perceiving the liberal hegemony as unjust, but the expansion of antagonism on such a scale is rather unique. It can be damaging to democracy worldwide unless it is mobilized for the construction of broader anti-war coalitions.