Authors

Discussion

This paper investigates the ways in which Russian government’s securitization of US democracy and human rights promotion and the US political elite’s criticism of Russia’s democratisation and human rights failures have been critical and co-constituting elements in the US-Russia relationship in the 21^st century. Significantly, this has been the case even though US presidential administrations since 2008 have, to varying degrees, sought to avoid enacting significant new penalties for Russian democratic failures or domestic human rights abuses, and have adopted positions on the issue ranging from pragmatism to disengagement. The paper suggests that, for both states, interactions on the issue of democracy and human rights in Russia have two principal functions: an indicator of the status of the bilateral relationship and a defining element of foreign policy identity. It suggests that the issue of US discourse on Russian democracy and human rights failures has thus become increasingly disconnected from the material enactment of US foreign policy towards Russia while remaining central both to perceptions of the relationship and to the constitution of each state’s national identity though its foreign policy. As a result, it will continue to be a destabilising and unresolved factor in the relationship.