I thank Sergei Prozorov for the attention that he has devoted to my presidential address, even if it is critical attention. But I obviously take issue with his characterization and reinterpretation of it as a discourse “strictly internal” to Slavic Studies that has little to do with Russian realities.
In the first place, I do not argue that empire is mere political rhetoric, as Prozorov reports, or that empire is pure phenomenology. Rather, I make it clear that empire – as a large-scale system of alien domination – has structural and behavioral elements. But it also contains a subjective dimension involving how people relate to authority that is often ignored in studies of empire. Saying this is completely different than simplifying empire to a “purely linguistic property,” as Prozorov attempts to do. I also do not argue, as Prozorov claims, that empire can merely be reduced to the opposition against empire. Rather, my argument is that, in a world in which empire is almost universally considered a pejorative due to the consolidation of sovereignty and self-determination norms, states will not self-identify as empires irrespective of their goals or behavior, that the reputational dimension of empire logically becomes a more important part of the phenomenon, and that violations of anti-imperial norms (expectations about how powerful states are supposed to behave that derive from norms of sovereignty and self-determination) become an important standard by which the presence of the “imperial” is judged. I do not argue that imperial reputation is identical with empire; rather, I see reputation as one element of imperial relationships – but an increasingly important element in a world in which empires do not self-identify. And by the way, lest Russian readers reach the false conclusion that my work on this subject is applied solely to Russia (or as Prozorov argues, a discourse internal to Slavic Studies), I have applied the very same analysis and standards in my writings on American imperial reputation,1 which is the other half of the comparative study of imperial reputation on which I am currently working.
To dissect Prozorov’s comments, we need to begin by asking what is a reputation, and how does it relate to practice? A reputation is generally understood in social science to be a form of dispositional explanation in which the type or character of an actor, extrapolated from past behavior, is said to account for the actor’s present or future behavior.2 Reputations are rooted in public norms about socially desirable conduct. And they have a partially constructed character to them (i.e., they are shaped in part by framing processes). But they are also based in part on real past observed behavior and are embodiments of an actual history. My approach to reputation draws on the “cautious naturalism” advocated by Fine,3 in which reputations are understood to be based in real streams of behavior, but are also shaped in part through communication processes. Thus, reputation can never be entirely separated from practice, and agents always bear some degree of responsibility for the reputations that their histories and behaviors evince.
The basic thrust of Prozorov’s comments is to dismiss whatever imperial reputation post-Soviet Russia bears today as having nothing whatsoever to do with Russia’s five-century history of empire or with Russia’s ongoing behavior. It is, as he says, a discourse internal to Slavic Studies (i.e., my own imagination), or one used by those who do not like Russia to discredit it and further their own interests at Russia’s expense. Such a stance absolves Russia of any responsibility for its own reputation and places the burden of guilt on those diehard “traditionalists” (like myself) who simply want to beat Russia over the head with its history. Ironically, while Prozorov lays out a vision of the bankruptcy and ultimate transcendence of the nation-state at the end of his essay, the underlying spirit of his analysis is a defense of the Russian nation-state’s efforts to expand its international influence against those who would paint it with an imperial brush.
The fact is that states do bear burdens for their histories, and that others judge them by the degree to which their behaviors do or do not live up to the expectations that these histories evince. Irrespective of whether Russians or the Russian state wish to deny any responsibility for how others understand Russian state behavior and to place the burden on the fanciful imaginations of others, it is a social fact that Russia has a poor reputation in Europe today – both in East and West Europe, and that much of that poor reputation has roots both in Russian history and in actual Russian behaviors in the contemporary period. Prozorov is correct that Russia’s efforts to raise energy prices to world-market levels is a necessary step toward Russia becoming a normal nation-state, and that relationships of Russian energy subsidies to post-Soviet states needed to be ended. But when a monopolistic supplier of energy cuts off the supply of its product entirely because it does not immediately receive the price that it demands or because a war memorial in a neighboring state is relocated, this is not considered normal commercial behavior. The very real damage that this behavior has done to Russia’s reputation in Europe is not due to purely linguistic manipulations of East Europeans or the wild imaginings of a lowly President of AAASS. When the President of Russia threatens to dismember Ukraine or target it with nuclear weapons should it choose to join NATO, it is difficult not to read such threats through the lens of Russia’s not-too-distant imperial history. When an FSB agent assassinates an emigre dissident in London by poisoning him with radioactivity, and the Russian government punishes Great Britain for trying investigate the crime (and moreover, engineers the election of the primary suspect to the Russian Duma), it is natural for others to see this in light of the past. By engaging in these kinds of “in-character” behaviors, Russia only reinforces the fears and expectations of others that the Russian state continues to harbor imperial ambitions. This is one of the basic points that I was trying to make in my address. Russia bears responsibility for the degree to which it continues to attract an imperial reputation. As I said, it may be held to a higher standard of behavior than would otherwise be the case because of its history. But its current behavior has not provided evidence that would assure others that it has completely transcended its imperial past.
Reputations are not cages. They can and do change,4 and there are many states in the world that have shed their imperial reputations. But that will not happen if the behaviors reinforcing these reputations are attributed to the imagination of others – a phenomenon well-known in psychology as “projection.” My own belief is that it is in the long-term interest of both the United States and Russia to rid themselves of their imperial reputations and for each of these states to learn to exercise hegemonic power in non-arbitrary, legitimate, and reputation-enhancing ways. Reputation has sometimes been likened to an “invisible eye” that enforces voluntary good conduct in the absence of coercion or immediate material incentive;5 those who repeatedly violate norms are punished reputationally through others’ behavior toward them in future interactions – not simply through the immediate costs that may be imposed by present behavior. American firms targeted by the Security and Exchanges Commission (SEC) for financial misrepresentation of their accounts, for example, have been shown to suffer losses in future lowered sales and higher contracting costs that were more than seven times any direct penalties that had been imposed by the SEC.6 The Soviet Union’s reputation as empire, rooted in its Stalinist past and reinforced by its post-Stalinist practice, led to the ultimate price of dissolution. Since empire is widely understood today to be a form of illegitimate rule, a state that has gained a widespread imperial reputation might expect to experience certain costs: greater resistance to its policies when the opportunity to resist emerges; foot-dragging, even by its own allies; a mistrust and concomitant reluctance of others to enter into agreements with it; and at times, even a sense of moral isolation. In our world of sovereignties and self-determinations, efficient power is necessarily legitimate power – a lesson that both Russia and the United States have yet to fully assimilate with regard to their behavior abroad.