Western Hegemony and Russia’s Eurasian Turn

Abstract

According to some perspectives, it is difficult to imagine the collective West developing further relations with Russia beyond the regulatory and systemic – rather than the social – so long as their political systems remain divergent. At the same time, continued elements of Russian “Europeanness” raise fundamental questions about the future role and pre-eminence of liberal states – including Canada – in the contemporary international order, seeing as the Western-led liberal order appears to have failed to become synonymous with global order itself. As such, Russia remains a good case study for probing the extent to which a future world order must root itself in a monist frame in today's pluralistic world. This paper will seek to explore this question from a perspective rooted in the English School of international relations, with the aim of deriving conclusions regarding the liberal international order's ability to maintain its hegemonic position in global international society.