Multipolarity, intersubjectivity, and models of international society: experiences of Russia - EU (mis)communication

Abstract

This Working Paper seeks to analyze the multifaceted Russia – EU relations as seen from different models of multipolarity. The key question the authors address is how the various perspectives of multipolarity can shape the EU – Russia relations and bring different outcomes. Arguably, Moscow and Brussels have divergent ideas about the practical arrangements the idea of multipolarity implies; besides, inside Russia and the EU there are multiple competing views on multipolarity. This plurality of voices requests a scrutiny of different models of a multipolar international society in which Russia and EU are its constitutive poles. In a multipolar world, the Russian – European inter-subjective interaction may take different institutional forms which we flesh out in this paper, dwelling upon a well-known distinction between pluralist and solidarist types of international society. Methodologically, the paper is based on an inter-subjective approach to EU – Russia relations. Inter-subjectivity connotes not only a possibility of achieving some practical effects of altering policies of other actors, but also of constituting their roles and even identities in the process of communicative exchanges. (author's abstract)