Abstract
Analysing the Ukraine-Russia War in a Realist and Constructivist Theoretical Framework
This study, which investigates the causes of the war that appear with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with its historical roots, benefited from two important theoretical perspectives of international politics. This study, which shows the differences and tensions of the historical narratives of Ukraine and Russia, shows how nationalist discourses create different histories. The Ukrainian nationalist historical narrative, which declined during the Soviet Union, gained strength again after the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, Ukraine has become the country where the Russian minority lives the most. This article, which examines today's war and the process leading to war through the political consequences of this historical heritage from a Neorealist perspective, states that the provocations of NATO and Western countries dragged Russia into the war. On the other hand, from the opposite s from a Constructivist perspective, the Putin administration has adopted a war policy with a subjective perception of security, exaggerating the issue that Russia is under an existential security threat, and has chosen the path to war as a result of its own subjective political preferences. This article, which examines the Ukrainian-Russian War in a theoretical framework through contradictory analysis results, states that both theories correspond to a significant social reality. The Constructivist, emphasizes that the perspective arguing that the content of international anarchy is constructed by elites and is subjective offers better possibilities for explaining war.
Keywords
Neorealism, Constructivism, Russia, Ukraine, Historical Narrative