Conference on Russia Papers

The article examines how Russia employs the concept of a multipolar world to justify a hierarchical and hegemonic vision of international order. Drawing on structural realist theory, it argues that Moscow’s rhetoric of multipolarity masks a project aimed at restoring great power status, securing regional dominance, and weakening Western liberal norms. Using discourse analysis and process tracing, the study reviews Russian foreign policy concepts, security strategies, and speeches by key elites, alongside case studies of institutional participation in SCO, CSTO, EAEU, and BRICS and military interventions in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and Kazakhstan. The analysis shows that Russia institutionalises multipolarity politically through alternative regional and global platforms that reinforce its centrality, operationalises it strategically through coercive use of force and veto power, and justifies it normatively through sovereigntist and civilisational narratives. Three intertwined ideological pillars balance of power, sovereignty as civilisational defence, and civilisational pluralism provide moral cover for revisionist policies at home and abroad. The article concludes that Russia’s version of multipolarity is not an inclusive pluralist alternative to the liberal international order, but a fragmented system organised around spheres of influence, hierarchy, and the unconstrained autonomy of great powers.