ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Soviet Union and Russia more closely within International Relations theory itself, especially from the perspective of its Third/Fourth debate. John S. Duffield thus criticises the structural realist view that international regimes would always be highly determined by the more basic causal factor of power distribution, that is, that the rules of regimes would be either identical to the dictates of power and interests, or they would be irrelevant. The chapter defines the degree of institutionalisation of the environment where Russia is acting, and to study empirically, how these institutional networks affect its behaviour. Alexander Wendt notes that social identities and interests may be relatively stable in certain contexts, in which case it can be useful to treat them as given. Mark Neufeld, in turn, sees three solutions or 'stances' to the challenge of the incommensurability thesis within International Relations theory – the first two of them being wrong and the last one being his own solution.
