<p>The study analyzes Russian foreign policy discourse on NATO during and after the Georgian war as constructed in on-line news articles from the state-run RIA Novosti news agency. The thesis adopts constructivist and discourse analytical approach. Namely, it is based on the interplay between the three main theoretical pillars: language as constitutive part of social reality; media as a type of discourse; and the constructivist understanding of the foreign policy discourse as being embedded in the domestic social and cultural dimensions.  <em></em></p><p>The research has shown that the discourse on NATO constructed in the news articles of Ria Novosti to a great extent reflected the official Russian government’s discourse.  The overall unfavorable representation of the organization was evident throughout the analyzed material. This ‘negative-other representation’ served to establish political frontiers between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ of the discourse. In the context of the Georgian war, the questions of the future power balance as well as effective transatlantic security mechanism gained particular prominence. The geopolitics of the 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 in most of the post-Soviet space, on the other. Such representation tended to possess distinctive features of the Cold War discourse.</p><p> </p>

The study analyzes Russian foreign policy discourse on NATO during and after the Georgian war as constructed in on-line news articles from the state-run RIA Novosti news agency. The thesis adopts constructivist and discourse analytical approach. Namely, it is based on the interplay between the three main theoretical pillars: language as constitutive part of social reality; media as a type of discourse; and the constructivist understanding of the foreign policy discourse as being embedded in the domestic social and cultural dimensions.  The research has shown that the discourse on NATO constructed in the news articles of Ria Novosti to a great extent reflected the official Russian government’s discourse.  The overall unfavorable representation of the organization was evident throughout the analyzed material. This ‘negative-other representation’ served to establish political frontiers between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ of the discourse. In the context of the Georgian war, the questions of the future power balance as well as effective transatlantic security mechanism gained particular prominence. The geopolitics of the 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 in most of the post-Soviet space, on the other. Such representation tended to possess distinctive features of the Cold War discourse.

This thesis addresses the ethical implications of NATO securitizing Russia without being in direct warfare,seeking to contribute to the debate of the integration of ethics into IR. This thesis contributes to that argument by integrating ethical dimensions of normative character through Floyd's Just Security Theory (JST) within the framework of social constructivism to develop new theoretical insights. The research is structured around theresearch question exploring how NATO's identity construction undergoes changes due to the tense relationship withRussia. The formation of identity plays a crucial role in threat construction. The findings from Rousseau andGarcia- Retamero's Threat Assessment, revealed through NATO Annual Reports, confirm the fluidity of NATO's identity construction and its designation of Russia as a threat. The second portion of the research question suggestthat attributing a threat status to another actor in the international system has significant ethical implications, necessitating ethical considerations in the securitization process and its influence on security discourse. The thesis findings support the need for ethical considerations, while acknowledging that these considerations aresubject to critique based on the chosen theoretical framework. It emphasizes the need for ethical considerations in the securitization process, and by extension in IR; and argues for the moral justifiability of NATO's securitization of Russia.