Russia in world society: A comparative perspective on international references in parliamentary debates

Abstract

This article explores how international references in parliaments build a synchronized world polity, even in countries that are often portrayed as being at odds with the rest of the world. The article asks whether and how Russian parliamentarians refer to the international community, and how such references compare with parliamentary debates in other countries. The “mesophenomenological” argument developed here connects World Society Theory, which demonstrates global isomorphism, with national studies of Russia, which argue for important national particularities. The empirical analysis draws on a stratified random sample of debates on draft laws in the Russian Duma from 1994 to 2013, comparable to similar samples from six other countries. The results show that: (1) Russian parliamentarians refer to the international community in the same level and the same forms as in other countries; (2) Russian policy-makers rely on the same imageries of the social world to convince their audiences as do other parliamentarians; and (3) this similarity in form remains consistent throughout the period, despite radical changes in national politics. These findings attest to the Russian Duma as a site of world culture, and to the mesophenomenological view that the world polity is highly synchronized through discourses of cross-national comparisons.