ABSTRACT
This chapter puts forward four arguments. First, it points to the dichotomous nature of the study of EU–Russian relations and the dangerous fallacies that follow from the field’s deeply entrenched binaries. Second, it argues that although constructivism is not always explicitly accepted, constructivist influences are felt throughout the subfield. Third, it shows that constructivist research has recently been moving away from Giddensian constructionism towards more stress on the agency of both Russia and the EU. As a result, constructivism ceases to be a tool which explains the similarities between the actors and their cooperation and turns into the lens through which the discord and growing tensions between Russia and the EU are explained. Fourth, building on recent research on the sociology of knowledge, the chapter also shows how the new, more critically orientated constructivists differ from previous constructivist research, which largely ended up in the role of the advocates of a Horkheimian traditional theory. The text concludes by pointing to the newest challenges to constructivism, which are linked to the emergence of a plethora of post-constructivist approaches such as various types of ‘new materialism’ and Latour’s actor-network theory.
