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Ontological security: a framework for the analysis of Russia’s view of the world

ABSTRACT Recent studies have noted the human need for ontological security as an important factor of a state's foreign policy. Ontological security builds on the major role that embedded and routinized biographical narratives of a state play in its identity: how it sees itself, and how it wants to be seen by others. While there is rich research connecting the importance of the great power narrative to Russia's sense of ontological security, less attention has been paid to operationalization of such “greatness.” This article seeks to “decode” some aspects of Russia's ontological security. It focuses on the continuity of three narratives that in our opinion have historically formed a cornerstone of the country's ontological awareness as a great power (strong leader, imperial expansion, and the West's impact on Russia's sense of identity), and on the rupture of that continuity that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its more recent revival.