Dina Moulioukova

of a dissertation at the University of Miami. Dissertation supervised by Professor Roger Kanet. No. of pages in text. (171) The traditional notion of security in international relations theory assumes that nationstates have one driving goal in their relations with other states – their own survival. Therefore states should calculate their foreign policy decisions solely with that goal in mind. While physical security is important to states, sometimes, however, states structure their actions in materially costly ways. These actions satisfy the self-identity needs of the states. In case states avoided these actions their sense of self-identity would be radically disrupted, and such a disruption is just as important to the states as threats to their physical integrity. While physical security is important to the states, in some instances ontological security is more important because its fulfillment affirms a state’s self-identity: it affirms not only its physical existence but primaril...

... Nikita Lomagin (2009, p. 55) ... is understood by the Russian elite to be morally the equal of Western democratic models, whose emphasis on liberal concepts of human rights have no roots in Russia's historical development (Herd, 2009, p. 3). Vladislav Surkov defined the concept ...