Authors

Discussion

Nationalism gets to the heart of questions of whether we are seeing a re-ideologisation of Putin’s foreign policy. For some, it was obvious long before 2022 that Russia’s foreign policy towards Ukraine is driven by imperialist nationalism. For others, questions of strategic culture and security interests are still likelier ‘drivers’ of foreign policy, while nationalism is, at best, a post-hoc policy rationalisation focussed on domestic legitimisation. This paper outlines a threefold conceptualisation of the changing foreign policy role of nationalism focussing on official nationality, political nationalism and cultural nationalism. This shows how nationalism is used discursively by the Putin regime, both as a foreign policy input and policy justification. Over time, the differences between the three faces of nationalism have become increasingly elided, so that calling Putin’s foreign policy ‘nationalist’, particularly in relation to Ukraine, is increasingly justified. However, the differences between Putinite foreign policy and other radical nationalists are still salient enough that Putin’s policy will disappoint the nationalists.