Authors

Kevork Oskanian¹;  ¹ University of Exeter, UK

Discussion

This paper applies Bourdieu’s notion of ‘symbolic capital’ to developing relations between the West, Russia, and the global South in light of the ongoing Ukraine war. Conceptualising International Society as an anarchic meta-field with its own distinct relationships of power and meaning, it first defines symbolic capital within this high-politics realm as a state and its “state nobility’s” ability to command prestige and recognition among its - formally sovereignly equal - peers. It subsequently examines the conventional sources of symbolic power within the Liberal International Order – including legitimate and stable domestic orders and economic success – and their relative shifts since the 2008 financial crisis. Both the West’s and Russia’s adoption of - at times contradictory - anti-colonial discourses in their justifications for practices in Ukraine are then posited to be attempts to mitigate – in the Western case – or exacerbate – in the Russian case – the compromising of the West’s near-monopoly on symbolic capital in the Liberal International Order, particularly among states in the global South. The paper concludes by surveying the reactions of states in the global South to both antagonists’ claims, in debates in the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly among other international fora.