Gudalov Nikolai

The Role of Language in Realist Tradition of International Relations

The role of language in political realism has been studied rather poorly. Moreover, in general researchers rarely pose such a question. 

Although there has recently been a tendency to revise the prevailing stereotypes that reduce realism to naive materialistic ontology, primitive correspondent epistemology and ethical cynicism, there are still few works aimed at analyzing the linguistic dimension of realism. Moreover, even in those works where this issue is touched upon, no attempts are made to identify certain general trends of this direction in the theory of international relations. Meanwhile, without taking into account this dimension and its historical modifications, it is hardly possible to fully comprehend this centuries-old tradition of political thought.

To fill the gap, the authors turn to the analysis of the views of a num- ber of major theorists of the realist school — from Thucydides and T.Hobbes to classical realists, neo-realists and neoclassical realists. Their research shows that language plays a significant (although not always clearly defined) role in realism, and it can be considered not only as a political tool, but also as the foundation of a specific community’s worldview or as the footing of a scientific model. At the same time, the realist approach to language is not without its flaws that make it vulnerable to criticism. This is primarily about its inattention to the constructive relationships of linguo-political communities and the correlation between different scientific models or even the absolutization of their incommensurability. According to the authors, realism’s inherent focus on pluralism and conflicts has linguistic reasons as well.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2020-97-2-54-66

Pages: 54-66

Semiotics of Resilience in International Relations: the Diversity of Academic and Political Meanings

In the recent years the Western countries have increasingly used the concept of resilience in the political science and politics discourses. This concept characterizes the reaction of subjects to the impact of shocks of any kind and origin, however, its conventional definition has not been elaborated yet. The authors have turned to semiotics as their theoretical basis and attempted to identify the nature of the relationship between the use of the term “resilience” in the scientific discourse and its application to political practice. They analyzed the scientific interpretations of “resilience” and forms of the use of this concept in the documents, which reflect the approaches to foreign and defense policy of the European Union, Germany, France and Britain.

The study showed that the concept of resilience has a very broad denotation and a large number of connotations, which makes its use in the structure of discourse problematic from both syntagmatic and paradigmatic views. There- fore, according to the authors, the pragmatic dimension of the concept, i.e., how the concept is used and interpreted in foreign policy of different states, gains particular importance for comprehending “resilience”. At the same time the very amorphousness of the term “resilience” broadens the freedom of maneuver by the interested actors when dealing with equally amorphous risks and threats to the international security, the proliferation of which accompanies the development of globalization.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2018-88-1-135-147

Pages: 135-147