Political Communication, Political Discourse and Rhetoric

Olga Brusylovska

Odessa I. I. Mechnikov National University,

Chief of the Department of International Relations brusylovska@onu.edu.ua

Abstract. There is a tendency towards changing the subject field of Political Sciences and International Relations (IR). It moves from topics related to reforms, strategies, global affairs, war and peace to issues of identity policies (like national or gender), truth and post-truth, among others. Such shifts increase the level of variability of the boundaries of both disciplines and give new opportunities to the researchers working on an interdisciplinary paradigm. Discourse analysis is capable of enriching the research tool kit of professional political scientists. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in the discipline of IR allows converting a study from a meta-level to the level of discursive practices. It gives an opportunity to overcome the artificial division of the spheres of domestic and foreign policy. This article examines the works of Russian and Ukrainian political scientists. It does not mean that the researchers’ primary field of study has to be CDA. They are political scientists that tried to apply this method as an experiment.

Keywords: CDA, International Relations studies, Russia, Ukraine.

1. Introduction

The article aims to explore how Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) helps political scientists to convert studies from a meta-level to the level of discursive practices, especially in International Relations (IR) studies. The main research questions of this paper are the following: How can CDA enrich the research tool kit of political scientists? What papers by Ukrainian and Russian authors best exemplify the use of CDA methods? What issues do Ukrainian and Russian authors discuss more often and why? How does fuzziness appear in CDA studies in Russian and Ukrainian political science?

Discourse theory is present within different scientific traditions. The poststructuralist tradition of discourse analysis has had a substantial influence on political sciences, including various theories of IR. Jacques Derrida’s maximalist formula that “everything is a discourse” serves as a basis. [1] Poststructuralist discourse analysis intellectually originates from the works of Antonio Gramsci, Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Jacques Lacan. [2] They analysed discourse as a total of social practices that reproduce senses and meanings. Social practice formulates a discursive event, and, at the same time, a discursive event formulates social practice. We can call CDA ‘the second generation’ of discourse theories if poststructuralist discourse analysis belongs to the first generation. Poststructuralists claim that identity forms as a result of its positioning against other phenomena. [3] In order to understand the multifarious aspects of fuzzy boundaries in the field of discourse studies, it is crucial to turn to the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. They propose a discourse theory that connects language, ideology, and domination/hegemony. Hegemony is related to antagonism, but the boundaries that separate the opposing forces are unstable. Hegemony is power that is accepted through identification with the source of power and is challenged by drawing a boundary between the ‘oppressors’ and the ‘oppressed.’ According to Laclau and Mouffe, “the practice of articulation, as fixation/dislocation of the system of differences, cannot consist of purely linguistic phenomena”. [4] As was written previously [5], there is a tendency towards widening the subject field of discourse theories. The focal point shifts from identity policy research (e.g., national, gender), to traditional political science issues, such as reforms, strategies, and ideologies.

At the same time, there is the newest tendency towards changing the subject field of Political Science and IR. It moves from topics related to reforms, strategies, global affairs, war and peace to the issues of identity policies (like national or gender), truth and post-truth, among others. Such shifts increase the level of variability of the boundaries of both disciplines and give new opportunities to the researchers working on the interdisciplinary paradigm. When employed in the ‘political’ domain, discourse analysis faces the most conservative manifestations of traditional science. The analysis of political discourse is not a highly formalized discipline. It functions as an interdisciplinary methodological approach that integrates theories and practices of textual analysis in political science. It is unlikely that a professional political scientist would stop at the level of analysing, for example, grammatical forms and prevent oneself from broader generalization. As long as people continue positioning themselves as political scientists, they will use texts in a ‘utilitarian’ manner and will label ‘border-line disciplines’ additional. Nonetheless, discourse analysis is capable of enriching the research tool kit of professional historians, sociologists, and political scientists using linguistic methods of textual analysis in socio-oriented research.

In this regard, the essential definitions here are truth and post-truth. The ‘truth’ concept is most often used to express being in accord with fact or reality. Some philosophers view the concept of truth as basic and research the boundaries of truth. Leo Strauss protected truth by paradoxically vindicating lies. [6] John Rawls emphasized that a liberal democratic community should not aim at the ‘whole truth,’ only at ‘justice’. [7] Other researchers, who are important to this particular research, view truth as the correspondence of language or thought to an independent reality. Language is a means by which humans convey information to one another. People can take different stances as to what constitutes truth depending on the following questions: how to identify the truth; what role do faith and empirical knowledge play; and whether truth can be subjective or if it is objective (‘relative truth’ versus ‘absolute truth’). According to Michel Foucault, defining truth is problematic when one attempts to see it as an ‘objective’ quality. Foucault prefers not to use the term ‘Truth’ and uses ‘Regimes of Truth’ instead. In his historical investigations, he found truth to be itself a part of or embedded within a given power structure. [8] ‘Post-truth’ is simply ‘lies’ to those we trusted, meaning, first of all, political elites. The exploration of the post-truth phenomenon as lies became the aim of western XXI century researchers. John Mearsheimer thought it could be detrimental to a democratic regime. [9] Steve Tesich [10] and Adam Chmielewski [11] blamed ordinary citizens who equalled truth to ‘bad news’. As a result, they provided a new instrument for political manipulations. Thus, nowadays, the problem of the relativity of truth becomes a refuge for liars too often. This is primarily related to politicians and academia representatives. One of the goals of this work is to study such a phenomenon.

About two dozen articles employed the CDA method in Russian and Ukrainian political science (including international relations) several years ago. Today, their total amount reaches hundreds. The quantity of these works is growing very fast. Thus, there is some trend amongst political scientists from post-communist countries. They want to be integrated into world science as fast as possible and believe that researching CDA is an easy way to do it.

This article examines the works of Russian and Ukrainian political scientists that are freely available. The main criterion for including a published work into this research was not the time of publication, but whether the work was original. The author also considered whether the work was connected to international relations and whether it declared CDA in the theoretical framework of the study. It does not mean that the researchers’ primary field of study has to be CDA. They are political scientists that tried to apply this method for the first time as an experiment and never returned to it later. Taking all mentioned above into consideration, the author included twelve works into this study (six works by Russian researchers and six by Ukrainian ones). Some of them were articles, and some were theses (see Table 1).

Analysing the works of Russian and Ukrainian authors, it is necessary to detect such mandatory design components as the object, methodology, and results. The purpose of such detection is to identify the most critical features of each research and its contribution.

2. What Worries Post-Soviet Political Scientists? The Research Object

A topic popular with Russian researches can be illustrated by A. Rybina’s thesis “Critical Discourse Analysis of the Representation of Migrants in Russian Press” [12] and E. Tikhonova’s work “Representations of the Refugee Crisis in Russian Media.” The objective of the latter study was to establish how Russian print media covered the refugee crisis: “what are the discourse narratives, including frames, about refugees and the refugee crisis in the Russian media. The central research question was how Russian quality newspapers portray the refugee crisis in Europe” [13].

T. Dubrovskaya wrote “Constructing ‘the West’ in Russian Foreign Policy Discourse” article. She concentrated on several aspects of the concept of the West, which recurrently emerge in Russian foreign policy discourse, and aim to identify: (1). the political actors that are included in ‘the West’ term; (2). the axiological charge that the concept obtains in the speeches; and (3). the pragmatic strategies that are employed to construct ‘the West’ [14]. K. Chernysh focused on a similar issue in her thesis “Russian Foreign Policy Discourse During and After the Georgian War: The Representations of NATO”. She had a general aim of analyzing contemporary Russian foreign policy discourse on NATO during and after the Georgian war [15]. Both M. Koskina’s (Higher School of Economics, Nizhniy Novgorod) article “Syrian Conflict Coverage in Russian and American Media: Comparative Analysis” [16] and S. Tsirkunova’s (MGIMO University) article “Through the Prism of Metaphor: A Case Study of the US and UK Political Discourse of Ukrainian Conflict” [17] paid attention to the most sensitive crises for Russian society. The authors looked at the crises through the prism of their coverage in Eastern and Western press.

Thus, the most attractive objects for political scientists in international relations in Russia were migrants/refugees and their role in internal and external affairs, and East-West confrontation.

Popular theme among Ukrainian scholars is the discourse of Europe in Ukraine. R. Horbyk focused on the mediated representations of Europe during Euromaidan and subsequent Ukraine–Russia crisis in his doctoral thesis “Mediated Europes. Discourse and Power in Ukraine, Russia, and Poland during Euromaidan” [18]. The thesis is vital for the development of Ukrainian science. Adding to the coverage of the European theme, O. Kapranov published an article headed “Conceptual Metaphors in Ukrainian Prime Ministers’ Discourse Involving Renewables.” The scholar studied prime ministers’ political discourse in addressing the topic of Ukraine’s indecisiveness between Moscow and Brussels [19].

The article “Do You Also See what I See: Russian-Ukrainian Conflict in European, Ukrainian, and Russian Media” by A. Kryzhanivska offered some answers regarding the tension between Russia and Ukraine [20]. H. Klimava’s thesis “The Ukraine Crisis as It Is Represented in the News: A Critical Discourse Analysis” studied the role of language in the construction of ideological stances in newspapers in different countries [21]. N. Kadenko, in her thesis „East or West, We’ll Tell You What’s Best. The discourse of the XXI Century Crimean War” had the aim of exploring the process of identity-building by analysing the discourse of the Crimean conflict [22]. V. Sosnovskykh in his thesis “Discourse Analysis of the Crimean Speech: Vladimir Putin’s Testimony” (Charles University) aimed at explaining the tools of discourse that Putin utilizes in trying to convince his audience that the annexation of Crimea was somehow justifiable. Sosnovskykh was looking at how Putin articulated those instruments in his Crimean Speech [23].

Thus, the geopolitical context of Ukrainian foreign politics, the East-West dichotomy, and, most of all, contemporary Russian-Ukrainian conflict were the most attractive objects for Ukrainian international relations researchers. The reasons why international experts do not research these topics that are the most painful for Russian and Ukrainian societies using conventional methods are still unclear. So are the reasons why they require the involvement of innovations, including the development of the methodology for the CDA method.

3. CDA or Integrated Approach? The Methodological Frames for Russian and Ukrainian Research

The first studies in post-Soviet space had a propensity to develop a broad methodological framework, in which CDA was only an additional method. However, this broad approach did not always have positive results. The situation changed gradually. Scientists were going in two different directions: some tried to write their works using various methods, others only used CDA.

The first group includes the works of both Russian and Ukrainian scientists. For example, Tsirkunova chose the metaphorical model provided by G. Lakoff as the primary method. In this model, the international community is populated by ‘adult nations’ and ‘infant nations.’ The superpowers acquire the right to teach and discipline the ‘developing’ nations. One of the most effective tools used in the process of ‘teaching’ is sanctions. “Sanctions are considered to be an efficient means of punishment”. [24]

At the same time, the fact that Tsirkunova used CDA is essential in her work. This is because it claims that the choice of cognitive construals is governed by the context and by the perspective adopted. Tsirkunova studied small-scale text corpus of approximately 30.000 words. She extracted the texts from the Financial Times, the Washington Post, the Daily Beast, the New York Times, Forbes, the USA Today, the Washington Times, the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Economist, and the Daily Mail websites. [25] Kapranov also used conceptual metaphor. He wrote about traditional energy sources, such as natural gas, that Russia exported to the EU and non-EU Eastern European countries. The Russian state metaphorically construed them as a ‘gas card.’ According to Kapranov, ‘Gas for Weapons’ transformed into the conceptual metaphor of ‘Gas as a Weapon’. [26] Kadenko outlined the discourse of political leaders regarding national unity, a strong state, and differentiating from the others. [27] Sosnovskykh wrote about Putin’s ‘appeals.’ Both works provided us with the same examples. Thus, Putin uses the ‘history’ that fits his ‘regime of truth’ to justify the annexation of Crimea in each of the four appeals analysed by Sosnovskykh. [28]

In addition to metaphorical models, scholars paid much attention to the simultaneous use of the CDA method and various forms of constructivism. Dubrovskaya used both social constructionism and CDA. Both ‘the West’ and ‘international relations’ are social constructs. It means that they actualize through discourse and discourse practices. The constructionist approach to international relations was discussed in more detail previously. [29] The data used for this study include recent speeches of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (2014−2016).

Rybina chose CDA because it draws attention to the existence of stereotyped categorizations in texts. According to Wodak and Chilton, CDA also shows how language users categorize behaviour, actions, and attributes – all of which may be observable facts – in the ways that express attitudes towards such facts. Additionally, Rybina analysed the representation of migrants through several toposes: the topos of authority, the topos of history, the topos of danger. [30] She analyzed the articles of all journalistic genres that were written by the journalists/experts for the chosen newspapers. Novaya Gazeta is a Russian liberal opposition newspaper which is famous for its high standard pieces of investigative journalism. Rossiyskaya Gazeta is a Russian government daily newspaper. [31] The only condition was that articles had to be original. She gathered the articles that were published during six weeks of October–November 2013.

Chernysh based her work “on the interplay between the three main theoretical pillars: language as a constitutive part of social reality; media as a type of discourse; and the constructivist understanding of the foreign policy discourse as embedded in the domestic social and cultural dimensions.” Adopting Fairclough’s three-dimensional conception of discourse had an important implication for her work. It allowed viewing the news discourse (both texts and media discourse practice) as interrelated with the state identity and the difference in construction (social practice). As the author specified, “yet, this thesis should not be seen as an attempt of an empirical application of Fairclough’s conception. Such a direct application would require an in-depth lexical account of the data”. [32] Chernysh’s study conducted a discourse analysis of the Russian News agency Ria Novosti’s news articles published from July 2008 to June 2009. She chose Ria Novosti as a leading state-run multi-media information agency in Russia. The total monthly audience of the agency’s websites exceeds 7 million visitors, and its website is one of the most visited news resources on the Russian-speaking internet. At the time of studying Ria Novosti was the most frequently cited information source on Russia, both among Russian- and non-Russian media worldwide. [33]

The second group of scientists who only use CDA is represented, first of all, by Ukrainian scholars. Horbyk analysed the empirical material from nine newspapers: Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka and Rzeczpospolita (Poland); Dzerkalo Tyzhnya, Korrespondent, and Segodnya (Ukraine); and Kommersant, Izvestiya, and Novaya Gazeta (Russia). [34] Kryzhanivska looked at the most frequently repeated words in different media sources’ op-eds (European – The Guardian, Ukrainian – TSN, and Russian – RT) when studying Russian-Ukrainian conflict. She created three mini-corpora consisting of op-ed articles published in August 2014–March 2015. Her corpus consisted of 68 articles with 62,319-word tokens. [35]

Klimava chose the same manner in her work on the events in Ukraine in 2013−2014. She selected articles from four different online news portals. She chose The New York Times as one of the most famous American news sources, DW as a European news outlet, RT as the widest Russian broadcaster watched and read internationally. The Moscow Times also has a website and reports news in English. Klimava considered its angle of reporting worth of investigating as an alternative Russian opinion on events. [36]

Tikhonova and Koskina published only two more or less ‘pure CDA’ works among Russian scientists. They appeared several years later than Ukrainian ones.

Tikhonova based her methodological frames on van Dijk’s earlier works on discourse. She based the analysis on the following hypothesis: the closer a newspaper is affiliated with governmental structures, the more the narrative reflects the ownership structures. [37] She chose four major Russian daily nation-wide quality broadsheet newspapers for the analysis: Kommersant, Vedomosti, Novaya Gazeta, and Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Tikhonova analyzed the newspapers based on the content of their websites regarding the refugee crisis in Europe during January–December 2016, which comprised a total of 148 articles.

Koskina’s work was the last example. It concentrated on such newspapers as Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Izvestiya, Kommersant, the New York Times, the Daily Mail, and the Washington Post. Her investigation focused on a one-month period (September 2013). She analysed the techniques employed by mass media with a particular interest in “how the governments are willing to influence their citizen’s public opinion, manipulate their perception of the civil war, and propagate certain ideas”. [38]

Thus, this observation revealed that the most reputable works that influenced the development of political science in post-Soviet space could comprise two categories. Their authors belong to both the group of researchers who applied complex mixed methodologies and the group who applied ‘pure CDA.’ This proves that CDA is not contra-indicated to political analysts and international experts and can substantially enrich their habitual methodology.

4. Is This a Right Approach for the Best Results? IR Researches Using CDA

4.1. Using CDA for revealing mass media manipulations

The work of Koskina (Russia) shows conclusions regarding the issue of who founded the media. The author implies that the founder controls and manipulates public opinion with the help of implicit and explicit language tools. These tools are:

(1). the use of various lexical stylistic constructions such as similes, contrasts, and metaphors, including the ‘strict father morality’ metaphor; (2). the use of pragmatic constructions: presuppositions, irony; (3). the use of rhetoric constructions in reported speech; (4). grey propaganda (using information gained from unknown sources with uncertain reliability); (5). value-based differentiation of information; (6). the use of figures and statistics for reasonable argumentation. [39]

The Russian paper about Putin’s image belongs to a younger researcher, the second generation’s representative. Klimava discovered that NYT created a very negative image of Russia. The newspaper transmitted the general disproval of Putin’s actions, portrayed him as untrustworthy and made the reader want to call for action to stop the escalating crisis, which may lead to unpredictable and undesirable changes in the world. The responsibility for the annexation was laid exclusively on one person. [40] Undoubtedly, there was a severe shortcoming of the perception of Russian reality by the West. Finally, language plays a crucial role in constructing ideological perspectives on events, which may be later naturalized and, therefore, transformed into common sense ideas and beliefs. [41]

Kryzhanivska’s studies of Russian-Ukrainian conflict through international media show the difference in the conflict media coverage in different countries.

The most frequently mentioned personal name in The Guardian and TSN is Putin. The Guardian compared Putin to a historical figure, that of Hitler, saying that their methods of taking over territory are very similar. However, a similar comparison occurred on TSN in Ukraine. [42]

Thus, Kryzhanivska’s work confirmed this tendency to personalize responsibility for the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict once again. It is already a significant scientific result.

The next research topic attractive for Russian scientists – the migrants’ question – showed almost identical results in the works of Rybina and Tikhonova. There is a need to restate that from the author’s point of view, if two scholars come to the same conclusions independently, it increases the representative value of their works.

According to Rybina, if a murder suspect was not a Russian citizen, then he/she was an ‘illegal migrant’ in NG. NG wrote, for example, about three groups of people living in Moscow. The first group was illegal migrant workers (Tadjiks and Uzbeks); the second group was legal (Chechens and Dagestani people), and the third one were Russians. This division gives an idea of how Russian society is separated. [43] RG divided migrants into three groups according to Russians’ attitude to them.

The locals had a positive or indifferent attitude to newcomers from neighbouring regions of Russia; a neutral attitude to ‘brothers-Slavs’ from Moldova, Belarus, and Ukraine; and finally showed a disinclination for people from North Caucasus, Transcaucasia, Central Asia, Vietnam, and China. The general attitude to foreign workers was negative, and people thought that there were too many of them in Russia. All of the newspapers divided ethnic Russians and North Caucasians into separate groups and never considered them as one united society of Russian citizens. The ‘persons of Caucasian nationality’ were contraposed to ‘brother-Slavs.’ It is interesting to note that NG showed more sympathy for defenceless and rightless migrants from Central Asian countries than to Caucasians or Transcaucasians. [44]

One of the main Rybina’s conclusions was that Russian nationalism was justified by employing the topos of danger through victimizing Russian citizens.

RG did not pay much attention to the radical nationalistic movements. The newspaper tried not to highlight the ethnic side of the conflict, accusing media and internet-communities of heating up the situation. The illegal and aggressive actions of the locals, their riots and nationalistic sentiments were justified as their right to protect their district and were even presented as civil society actions. [45]

Thus, the problem of migrants – legal or illegal – reflected one of the most serious tendencies in Russian society that is prone to separating itself from surrounding civilizations and to a certain closure (if not of the borders then of a society that rejects ‘alien elements’).

Tikhonova discovered seven most common framings of refugees within the discourses of the four analysed newspapers. The refugees as a source of crimes and terrorism, the refugees as a threat to social stability and political security, the refugees were not welcome in Russia, the refugees as victims, the refugees were not welcome in Europe, helping refugees, struggling refugees, the refugees as illegal immigrants, the refugees as abusers of the international law. She concluded that each of the analysed newspapers dealt with the refugee crisis issues differently, which was reflected in the frequency of publications, the utilization of the information sources, and the emphasis on different ideas within the narratives. [46] Her analysis showed that ownership mattered only in the case of a governmentally-owned newspaper. However, when it came to the independent outlets, such factors as specialization and the editorial position may have been explanatory factors in discussing the differences within narratives.

The newspapers attracted attention to different details and nuances of the crisis. While Novaya Gazeta depicted refugees as those who were saving their lives fleeing from the war in Syria, Rossiyskaya Gazeta made a clear account of those seeking economic benefits in Europe using the war as an excuse to improve their living standards. [47]

For Tsirkunova ‘linguistic units are not innocent,’ and her conclusions sounded as dissonance against the backdrop of previous works.

The representation of the conflict in Ukraine in the US and the UK online media was no exception. The interest groups made news reports create a reality to maintain ideological control. Brussels and Washington sanctioned Russian energy and financial firms like Rosneft. The direct connection between Rosneft and the Ukrainian issue was a mystery. …The shooting down of MH17 has escalated the diplomatic war between Washington and Moscow and resulted in more sanctions… Ukraine is assigned the role of a victim in the present conflict, while Russia appears a criminal. [48]

It is especially instructive that the author reproaches the Western press for working for the groups of interests and the high level of ideological colouring. At the same time, her own conclusions serve as a guide on how Russian scientists are involved in creating a pseudo-reality useful to the Kremlin. She stubbornly calls the Russian-Ukrainian conflict ‘a crisis in Ukraine,’ dismissing the Russian factor in this crisis, Russian involvement in the creation of crisis zones in the Donbas, and the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine up to this day. The author also pretends that she does not know the Kremlin controls that so-called ‘private firms,’ and that energy policy is an integral part of the state’s foreign policy. Finally, she denied the Kremlin’s fault in the crash of the Malaysian aircraft, although this fact was internationally recognized.

To conclude from the results of political scientists’ works based on CDA, we can highlight several important features. The analysis of the perception of Putin was the most popular topic in the whole studied period. The works by Koskina and Kryzhanivska serve as examples of how correctly we can focus on the interdisciplinary problem with respect to both political discourse and CDA. Among others, Tikhonova successfully demonstrated Russia’s attempts to use urgent problems to create a negative image of the West in her work. Rybina demonstrated the attempts to use the most pressing questions to create a negative image of the West and added that the degree of xenophobia in modern Russian society is unusually high even for this country.

4. 2. Using CDA for revealing the question of ‘right understanding’ of traditions and values

Usually, Russian authors closely examine the threats associated with ‘the invasion of strangers’ into their homeland. In contrast, Ukrainian scholars are much more concerned about the issues related to the quality of their native political elites. This hypothesis is easily proven in Hobryk and Kapranov’s works.

Horbyk conducted press analysis in Russia and Ukraine. The author discovered that liberal publications focus on positive values, whereas conservative and business newspapers are preoccupied with negative values.

Among the positive values, the humanistic ones dominate the Ukrainian newspapers, and the rationalist-technocratic are typical in the Russian sample. The Ukrainian press accounts for most of the positive coverage of a prosperous Europe, whereas the Russian press provides most of the negative coverage (Europe as a failing entity and an enemy)… During and after Euromaidan, Ukrainian journalists used the powerful Europe-as-values concept to intervene in the political field and to recontextualise this narrative of Europe as the official foreign policy narrative… Compared to this, the robust discourse of journalist objectivity constrained journalists in Russia in their social practice; instead, it is the official discourse that became recontextualised by the media. [49]

Summing up, the most striking difference between Ukrainian and Russian narratives is that Ukrainian elites, despite their internal diversity, seem to have formed a consensus about Europe. They see it as a source of positive values constituting a self-imposed task of self-reforming, which was recontextualised to the official discourse from public discussion. Russian narratives, however, are divided: some of them resemble the Ukrainian talk of values, others reject Europe for being an aggressive rival (the perspective that the Kremlin certainly favours and tries to recontextualise to public debate from its official rhetoric). Others are ambiguously split between these two poles. [50]

One should pay particular attention to the following of the outcomes he gained: (1). Europe started to be seen as an enemy in Russia more often after the annexation of Crimea. (2). Ukrainian media frame Europe in the context of Ukraine more than others. However, the Russian newspapers seem to mention Ukraine alongside Europe. There was a clear break in the winter of 2013–2014 (Euromaidan and the Ukraine–Russia crisis) that marked a sharp rise in the number of texts about Europe that also mention Ukraine. [51] The latter conclusion is most important in the context of the studies of interstate and international relations. Horbyk showed that Russian society had abandoned the traditional view on Ukraine as an integral part of Russia in recent years. This is a dramatic change.

Kapranov initially reflected the discourse of political elites in Ukraine devoted to the gas policy. He argued that Eastern European political discourse regarded renewables as a construal that contrasts ‘Gas as a Weapon.’ Presumably, the metaphors in opposition to ‘Gas as a Weapon’ are instantiated by several cross-domain mappings, such as ‘from Renewables to Survival’ and ‘from Renewables to Independence’ respectively. Thus, they result in the metaphors ‘Renewables as Survival’ and ‘Renewables as Independence’. [52] Kapranov’s data analysis reveals that ‘Renewables as Independence’ represents a consistent metaphoric space in Ukrainian Prime Ministers’ (PM) discourse, with PM Yanukovych being a notable exception. The identification of renewables with the EU that is instantiated by the metaphor ‘Renewables as Ukraine’s European Choice’ can be found in PMs Yehanurov and Azarov’s discourse. Data suggest that renewables are conceptualized as a matter of Ukraine’s survival in the context of Russian politics of using natural gas as a political weapon. [53]

The next widely discussed idea is the idea of a ‘collective West’ in Russian media. Its analysis had very similar results in the works of Dubrovskaya and Chernysh. Dubrovskaya identified three different ways of referring to the West in Russian foreign policy discourse.

First, ‘the West’ category can be used as self-explanatory, without any further specification of the actors it incorporates. Second, ‘the West’ is used as a direct equivalent of Europe and the European Union and, therefore, includes the EU member states, its various bodies, and institutions within the EU, as well as the individual actors who have the official authority to represent the interests of the EU. It is important to note that the representations of the West as a purely European construct do not lack ambiguity either. For instance, NATO recurrently appears in the context of Russian-European relations… The third type of representation involves explicit signalling of a close association between Europe (the EU) and the US. They are grouped under the label ‘the West’ and are ascribed similar qualities. The West is constructed discursively as a category that is related to the concept of the East, while the latter is strongly and unambiguously associated with Russia. In many contexts, the West and the East come into an opposition, which can be viewed as a specific realization of an ‘Us vs Them’ opposition. [54]

Chernysh emphasized that Ria Novosti used such discourses as ‘NATO as the aggressor pursuing both functional and geographical expansion,’ ‘NATO’s responsibility for the Georgian conflict,’ and ‘NATO as a ‘paper soldier’’ for constructing the enemy’s image. The discourses such as ‘Russia as a legitimate major regional power in Eastern Europe,’ ‘Cooperation is impossible or unnecessary,’ ‘Neo-Cold War discourse,’ and ‘The Concept of the West’ were used for constructing the relations between NATO and Russia. [55] Thus, Chernysh successfully proved that this ‘negative-other’ representation served to establish political frontiers between the ‘insiders’ and the ‘outsiders’ of the discourse. The geopolitics of regional security was represented as bipolar, comprising NATO (or ‘the West’ in its broad sense) on the one hand and Russia as the legitimate leader on most of the post-Soviet space on the other. This research may contribute to the explanation of the overall negative public attitudes towards NATO in Russia. The research revealed that the news articles by Ria Novosti reflected the official Russian government’s discourse to a great extent: it tended to portray the Russian position as ‘righteous’ without being questioned. There was a tendency to associate this medium with such a position, referring to it as ‘ours’. [56]

It is often and not by chance that the topic of the West-East dichotomy intersects with the coverage of the current Russian−Ukrainian conflict. Kadenko discovered that taking Maidan-inspired patriotism into account, the Prime Minister of Ukraine exploited the theme of the common past against the oppressive Russian ‘other.’ However, his narrative of the ‘other’ was bleak compared to the complicated construction by the Russian President. [57] Kadenko concluded that the toposes invoked in the media and official speeches contain references to the complicated history between Ukraine and Russia, the language issue, the specific linguistic code formerly utilized by the Soviet propaganda and Ukrainian nationalistic movements, as well as the new ideologically-backed war rhetoric and technical legal speech. [58]

It seems that even those works that are not dedicated to the figure of Putin himself but the modern Russian-Ukrainian conflict, in fact, were gradually coming to the generalization of the role of an individual in this story. Thus, Sosnovskykh analysed the occupation of Crimea through one of Putin’s speeches.

Putin recalls World War II veterans as moral authorities that resonate in the hearts and minds of Russians, who take great pride in the Soviet victory in World War II. He wants the Russian people to be prepared to fight for their homeland as their forefathers but in no way urges them to do so. By bringing up past Russian military victories in Crimea, Putin also presents them as a precedent, further justifying his actions. In order to justify Russia’s seizure of Crimea, Putin appeals to justice. He displays Russia and Russians in Crimea as being unjustly discriminated by the West and Ukraine. Putin presents Russia as a victim of the post-Cold War hegemonic system and insists that others always punished Russia for having an independent position. Coming back to economic sanctions, Putin presumed that those would be the consequences and was already preparing his Russian audience for the possible hardships that they might face as a result. Such a discursive move was skilful as it allowed Putin to play ahead of the West and paint Russia as a victim of their aggressive politics. After the Euromaidan revolution Putin spoke of the Ukrainian government as an illegitimate force that violated basic legal and democratic principles. He elaborated on Russia’s legal obligations to take actions to re-establish order and prevent killings as if Russia was the only legitimate country with no choice but to help Russians in Crimea. Putin said that Russia did not meddle in the referendum and just helped to create the safe conditions for it while denying the use of the Russian military in the annexation, although he acknowledged it later in 2015. [59]

Summarizing this research, Sosnovskykh wrote that Putin constructed a discourse, in which his actions in Ukraine may seem trivial, justified, hence, not worthy of interfering. The version of history presented by Putin was a weapon more dangerous than nuclear warheads because it led to the abandonment of Crimea by Ukraine and the West. Putin made this historic turning point seem insignificant years after the event took place. [60]

Perhaps, the conclusion that puts Sosnovskykh’s work among the most valuable for the development of political science is the following. Sosnovskykh thinks that the President’s speeches proved: despite the rhetoric full of military glory and greatness of the Russian nation, Putin seeks validation of their actions from the West, like Peter and Catherine before him. Russia wants to be perceived as a strong rival and a power centre capable of equivalent actions, regardless of whether it is for good or for bad. [61]

Thus, using CDA, one can discover new sides of long-studied and familiar subjects. This, in turn, pushes scientists not only to important theoretical generalizations but to practical recommendations for all interested state bodies. In this case, it is a tormenting question for the West: whether continued pressure on Putin is necessary, whether achieving concessions from him with the help of sanctions is possible. Discourse analysis showed that such an opportunity undoubtedly exists and there is a deep uncertainty in the chosen tactics behind the external bravado of the Russian president.

Russian authors closely examine the threats associated with ‘the invasion of strangers’ to their homeland; Ukrainian scientists are much more concerned about the issues related to the quality of their political elites as proven by Hobryk and Kapranov. Such a self-critical approach when scientists pay attention primarily to shortcomings in the activities of their government both in domestic and foreign policy inspires optimism. A country with independent press and intellectuals has more chances for progressive development than the country that severely suppresses any manifestation of disagreement. Several cases when Russia deprived scientists of academic degrees and workplaces since the state recognized their works ‘not patriotic enough’ served as examples.

The Russian mass media persistently pour the idea of the collective responsibility of the West for all the troubles of our time into the public consciousness. The view that ‘Europe = the European Union = NATO = the main enemy’ has won in Russia. At the same time, ‘the enemy is powerful’ and can only be defeated by ‘tightening up the belts;’ liberal values are inherent in the West and are ‘alien to Russia’ (Chernysh, Kadenko). Particular attention is drawn to the change in the perspective of Ukraine after the events of 2013−2014. Discourse analysis showed that the understanding that Ukraine is not Russia and that Ukraine is an integral part of Europe has finally expanded in Russia (Horbyk). The last but not least: there is probably the most painful question for the West today. It has to decide whether it wants to continue pressure on Putin and whether it is possible to get concessions from him with the help of sanctions. The correct use of CDA helped to understand that such an opportunity undoubtedly exists and the Russian president has a deeply hidden uncertainty in the chosen tactics (Sosnovskykh).

Table 1. The Main Parameters of the Research

Researcher	Object	Methodology	Results
Russia
Rybina A.	Migrants	Interdisciplinary studies (Toposes + CDA)	Post-truth, Manipulations in mass-media, justification of nationalism
Tikhonova E.	Refugees	CDA	Post-truth, Manipulations in mass-media
Dubrovskaya T.	Ideology, Collective West	Interdisciplinary studies (Social constructivism + CDA)	Truth, Collective West as “Others”
Chernysh K.	Ideology, NATO	Interdisciplinary studies (Constructivism + CDA)	Truth, Collective West as “Others”
Koskina M.	East–West tensions	CDA	Post-truth, Manipulations in mass-media
Tsirkunova S.	Ideology, East–West tensions	CDA	Ideological control in Western countries
Ukraine
Horbyk R.	Ideology, Ukraine	CDA	Truth, Ukrainian values
Kapranov O.	East–Ukraine–West	Interdisciplinary studies (Conceptual metaphor + CDA)	Ukrainian values
Kryzhanivska A.	East–Ukraine–West	CDA	Post-truth, Manipulations in mass-media
Klimava H.	East–Ukraine–West	CDA	Post-truth, Manipulations in mass-media
Kadenko N.	East–Ukraine–West	Interdisciplinary studies (Metaphor models + CDA)	Role of East–West tensions in the Ukrainian crisis
Sosnovskykh V.	Ideology, East–Ukraine–West	Interdisciplinary studies (Metaphor models + CDA)	Ukrainian values and conflict with Russia

Source: own representation.

5. Conclusions

CDA can be named an extremely useful methodological tool since it aims at exploring the relations of inequality, social tensions, and ideological substitution. Older and middle generations of researchers in humanities take the most interest in CDA. This is because in some way its spirit is close to the Marxist theory, a single well-studied theory in the USSR. Younger scientists are interested in CDA, first of all, because it helps to avoid being reproached for doing secondary research and makes their work ‘more scientific.’ It is interesting that researchers usually cite only a few founders in regards to CDA: R. Wodak, N. Fairclough, and T. van Dijk. Such a situation shows that post-Soviet scientists have limited knowledge about the CDA method and are cautious. An important conclusion is that Russian and Ukrainian works do not apply CDA alone. As a rule, it is used in addition to other tools of theoretical research, most often as an addition to several theories of poststructuralism. Nowadays, one can say that the post-Soviet crisis of science is nearing its end. The works of the past ten years are different from Soviet designs in their essence and form. They are approaching Western standards, which is logical because the primary task was to integrate into Western science. The idealistic search for truth was not such a priority as the desire to gain access to the foreign academic market. Nationalism is also not a past ideology in the scientific community. Instead, scholars desire to fit simultaneously in the world and national scientific communities. They want to lose neither the support of Western funds nor the place within their state. Russian and Ukrainian scholars, as well as residents of other post-Soviet countries, suffer from poverty. All financial levers are concentrated in the hands of the state. Thus, the state can demand loyalty from scientists. This is a huge problem since those are the states with unsettled democracy or even authoritarian states. Several studies applying CDA appeared in Russia and Ukraine in recent years. There are more works in Russia than in Ukraine because periodicals play an essential role in Russia. There is still no institutional field for the development of new scientific methods in Ukraine. There are also no influential scientific journals, whose task is to support the methods.

One can talk about two stages of the development of CDA in Russia and Ukraine. In the first stage, such articles were rare and carried less value for science. The interest in them was scanty even at traditional universities. The number of students who had the opportunity to study abroad has been increasing over time. Today they constitute the second generation, and their works use CDA much more correctly and effectively. Thus, one can argue that the development of the methodological base in the post-Soviet countries depends directly on whether such students return to their homeland. However, being given the difference in living standards in the West and the East, not all of them return. Training in Western universities does not guarantee that CDA and all other possible methods and theories will help young scientists to refrain from excessive politicization of science. This research showed that out of eighteen works at least two suffer from the use of labels and even frankly distort the facts to obtain the desired result. Analysing any database one has to remember the author’s country of origin. One of the aims of this research was to demonstrate common features and differences, even though scholars use the same method. In the majority of the cases, this difference is not clear, which is a good argument in favour of the CDA method. On the other hand, sometimes the author’s political views prevail over the scientific ones. The desire to prove the ‘injustice in punishing Russia for terrorizing Ukraine’ without convincing arguments persists.

All scientific works can be divided into sections depending on the questions they address. This research discovered three most popular topics in Russia: political challenges for Russia, Russian foreign policy, and the so-called ‘Ukrainian crisis.’ There are also three popular subjects in Ukraine: geopolitics, Ukrainian foreign policy, and Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Somehow these questions were related to the two topics –values and manipulations of the mass media over public consciousness. Five of twelve authors studied manipulations, and three – political values. Russian and Ukrainian researchers first pay attention to the problems of the political elites, political image; political challenges; sovereignty and democracy, democratization; identity formation, dissolution, identity politics, the crisis of identity, nationalism, and xenophobia; cultural life, intellectual and ideational practices. They conduct it through studying tag-phrases and specific vocabulary of politicians and mass media. The adoption of CDA for international relations studies remains its particular part. Researchers focus on studying foreign policy, foreign policy choices, the geopolitical game in post-Soviet space, and two different models of development: the Western and Russian. As a result, the conclusion is that science has not been left out of political life. Researchers pay special attention to urgent political issues in their countries of origin. It is especially true for the Russian-Ukrainian crisis. Unfortunately, Ukraine remains a litmus test for determining the degree of objectivity of Russian scientists. Even though they expressed valid points on other topics, when it comes to Ukraine and its policies, the overwhelming majority of Russian scholars submit to the ruling regime. Thus, this situation does not give hope for a quick change in the public consciousness and the politics of the Russian Federation.

The observation of modern research methodologies revealed that both the group of researchers who applied a complex mixed methodology and the group who applied ‘pure CDA’ made significant contributions. CDA is not contraindicated to political analysts and international experts, vice versa, it can enrich their methodology. Many scientists are trying to prove that the current world lives in the situation of ‘post-truth.’ In this case, the same characteristics acquire entirely different interpretations in ‘friendly’ and ‘hostile’ media; the media manipulate public opinion with the help of language tools; language plays a crucial role in constructing ideological perspectives on events. In other words, the media are the primary enemies of civil society and ‘linguistic units are not innocent.’ For example, when Russian scientists try to analyse the problem of East-West confrontation, they cannot stop repeating mantras officially approved by the Kremlin’s ideology. When they reproach the Western press for the high level of ideological colouring, their conclusions serve as a guide on how Russian scientists are involved in creating a pseudo-reality that is beneficial for the Kremlin. In this way, the scholars demonstrate deep emotional engagements with all sorts of ideological projects in their countries.

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Manuscript was submitted: 10.12.2019.

Peer Reviews: since 20.01.2020 till 12.02.2020.

Accepted: 12.02.2020

Сп. „Реторика и комуникации“, бр. 43, Април 2020.

Rhetoric and Communications Journal, Issue 43, April 2020

Брой 43 на сп. „Реторика и комуникации“, април 2020 г. се издава с финансовата помощ на Фонд научни изследвания, договор № КП-06-НП1/39 от 18 декември 2019 г.

Issue 43 of Rhetoric and Communications Magazine, April 2020, is issued with the financial assistance of the Research Fund, Contract No. KP-06-NP1 / 39 of December 18, 2019.