ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Russia’s recent policies towards Ukraine have been accompanied by foreign policy discourses of what could be called ‘sovereignty deficit’. These discourses contested Ukrainian sovereignty relying on the concepts of ‘colony’ and ‘failing’ or ‘failed state’ in order to demonstrate – both domestically and internationally – that Ukraine is not fully capable as a sovereign state and, by implication, requires externally administered frameworks for managing its statehood crisis. These ‘de-sovereignizing’ discourses have, thus, been paving the way for and legitimizing Russia’s active involvement and intervention in Ukrainian domestic affairs. The Ukrainian case should illustrate how the flux of concepts in international relations can correlate with policymaking dynamics. In the chapter I first provide a brief discussion of the concept of sovereignty and outline the theoretical foundations of my analysis, and then proceed to examining the documented discursive strategies and their possible relation to Russia’s policies towards Ukraine.
