Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
  • Publication
    The inevitable flaws in Russia's great power project
    (www.exploringgeopolitics.org, 2009-01-18)
    Mueller, Martin
    http://www.exploringgeopolitics.org/Publication_Mueller_Martin_Russia_Great_Power_Project_Inevitable_Flaws_Discourse_Analysis_Social_Construction_Foreign_Policy_Russian_Threat_Education.html
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  • Publication
    Doing discourse analysis in critical geopolitics
    (Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, 2010-12-10)
    Mueller, Martin
    This paper seeks to contribute towards a more explicit and candid discussion of the methodologies of discourse analysis within critical geopolitics. Proposing a classification along the three core dimensions of context (proximate or distal), analytic form (post-/structuralist or interpretive-explanatory) and political stance (involved or detached), it examines the ways in which critical geopolitics scholarship has understood and made use of discourse analysis. Subsequently, the paper introduces the poststructuralist discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, arguing that it is particularly suitable to address a number of key emerging concerns on the agenda of critical geopolitics
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  • Publication
    Making great power identities in Russia: an ethnographic discourse analysis of education at a Russian elite university
    (LIT, 2009)
    Mueller, Martin
    This book examines how the geopolitical discourse of a strong Russia plays out at a Moscow cadre university. In so doing, it provides an inside perspective on the geopolitical education of the future Russian elites and thus, possibly, on the future directions of Russian foreign policy. The material for my research was gathered during nine months of ethnographic research as a guest student at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). This institute is the pivotal Russian cadre university which trains students to serve in the Rus-sian Foreign Ministry and to occupy influential positions in Russian society at large. Conceptually, my project argues that the way identity has commonly been thought of in the fields of Political Geography and International Studies overlooks two crucial things: first, that social practice - what people do - is an important part of identity and, second, that identities are situated, i.e. they unfold in concrete contexts. To address these lacunae I draw on the poststruc-turalist discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and ideas of Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault. I combine this conceptual apparatus with ethnographic methodology to look at geopolitical discourses at MGIMO and how they come to position subjects in their identification. With Foucault, MGIMO produces ‘docile bodies' and objectifies knowledge through various small disciplinary techniques. It is this disciplining effect which provides for the successful functioning of the hegemonic discourse of a strong Russia at MGIMO. This geopolitical identity of a strong Russia is arti-culated as a response to the crisis of identity following the dislocation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet, antagonistic forces always block the full reali-sation of a strong Russia. What lies at the heart of this identity is a constitutive lack that makes for a fundamental ambiguity: articulations of a strong Russia are always intertwined with the imminent possibility of a weak Russia. At MGIMO this ambiguous geopolitical identity of a strong Russia is paired with banal patriotism. This patriotism forms an almost natural element of stu-dents' everyday lives. Not only is it considered a central element of education and a pre-requisite for any good graduate and future diplomat but it also per-meates quotidian practices of production and consumption. Through this banal patriotism the political is incorporated into the realm of the everyday and fashioned with the same objective qualities, thus naturalising the discourse of a strong Russia.
  • Publication
    Lack and jouissance in hegemonic discourse of identification with the state
    (Sage Publ., 2013-03)
    Mueller, Martin
    This paper shows how hegemonic discourses are sustained through the play of lack and jouissance. Lack refers to the symbolic limits of discourse and is both the condition of possibility and of impossibility of hegemony: while it vitiates the realization of a full identity, it at the same time keeps spurring the search for it. Jouissance describes the paradoxical satisfaction in dissatisfaction that subjects procure from this lack, from the failure to attain the enjoyment that hegemonic discourse promises. Looking at how organizations become enmeshed with the formation of state subjects, the paper considers identification with the discourse of a strong Russia at a Russian elite university as an empirical illustration. This discourse becomes hegemonic in students' identification not only because it proposes a comprehensive project that unifies a range of diverse signifiers and promises enjoyment, but also because it fails to provide a full symbolic suture and subjects are unable to obtain the promised enjoyment. This constant lack forms the basis for repeated acts of identification that strive to overcome it and provides a jouissance that keeps subjects attached to the illusory quest for real enjoyment - and thus to identification with a strong Russia.
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    Scopus© Citations 29
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    Market meets nationalism : making entrepreneurial state subjects in post-Soviet Russia
    (Carfax Publicatons, 2011-11-24)
    Mueller, Martin
    This paper argues that nationalism and neoliberalism should not be considered as conflicting ideologies, but can enter into a productive association. This association creates an entrepreneurial nationalism that people can actively embrace as selfgoverning subjects in pursuit of a good life and successful career, rather than as subjects governed through state-mandated projects from above. The paper illustrates this argument with material from nine months of fieldwork at a Russian elite university. While students at that university strive to develop their potential and increase their market value to be successful in the competition for the best jobs, they also emphasize that developing themselves is not antithetical to serving Russia and being true to one's country. On the contrary, advancing Russia and advancing one's own career are articulated as two sides of the same coin. At the same time, the Russian nationalist project is reframed in entrepreneurial terms: making the Russian nation strong is about developing its potential and raising its competitiveness in the global marketplace.
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    Scopus© Citations 8
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    Education and the formation of geopolitical subjects
    (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011-03)
    Mueller, Martin
    Despite the crucial role of schools and universities in shaping the worldviews of their students, education has been a marginal topic in international relations. In a plea for more engagement with the power and effects of education, this paper analyzes the interplay of discipline and knowledge in the formation of geopolitical subjects. To this end, it employs material from ethnographic research at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, the premier university for educating future Russian elites in the field of international relations. The paper draws on Foucault to chart the ensemble of disciplinary practices producing ‘‘docile bodies'' and objective knowledge and traces how these practices are bound up with the geopolitical discourse of Russia as a great power: while they fashion the great power discourse with objectivity, disruptions in the discourse also disrupt disciplinary practices.
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    Scopus© Citations 34