How does a security dilemma dynamic between parties deemed not to hold hostile intentions toward each other emerge and escalate? This article investigates Russian official discourse on NATO engagement in Europe post-Crimea (2014), and its impact on security interaction in the Arctic. We also examine how Russia represents NATO intentions and actions in a context seen by Russia as a relation of war. We identify the effect of these changing representations of self and other for the emerging securitization dilemma in relations between Russia and NATO, arguing that they have replaced uncertainty about NATO’s hostile intentions with certainty. Although Russia still articulates the Arctic as a unique cooperative region, there may be little space left for non-conflictual Russian action when encountering NATO in the Arctic. We highlight the agency and importance of evolving political rhetoric in creating a dangerous situation where lethal conflict can occur between parties who do not seek it, and also suggest that adjustments to patterns of official speech could be a tool of mitigation.

This article investigates the role of discourses in processes of deepening authoritarianism and war. By bringing Jacques Rancière’s works on politics and depoliticisation into dialogue with poststructuralist discourse analysis, the article argues that discursive depoliticisation contributes towards authoritarian consolidation and shows how authoritarianism deepens in a co-dependent nexus of domestic and international politics. Focusing in particular on Rancière’s concept of gaps, the article argues that the core mechanism of depoliticisation is to neutralise the gap constitutive of politics proper and that this neutralisation unfolds in discourse, through the logics of archipolitics, parapolitics, metapolitics and ultrapolitics. The article (1) develops a framework for unpacking discursive depoliticisation empirically by conceptualising Rancière’s logics as ideal-typical depoliticising discourses and (2) applies that framework in an analysis of Russian official discourse in recent years (2015–2023). The article thereby explains how discursive constructions have strengthened Russian autocracy: entrenched depoliticising discourses, produced and reinforced in a co-constitutive internal/external sphere, made possible authoritarian consolidation in Russia under Putin and its war on Ukraine. The article puts forward the concept of discursive depoliticisation as a novel perspective on ‘hybrid’ and authoritarian regimes, as well as Russia’s intensified war on Ukraine and full-on autocracy from 2022 onwards.

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† SammendragDenne artikkelen undersøker diskursens rolle i konsolidering av autoritaere regimer. Gjennom å etablere en dialog mellom Jacques Rancières arbeider om politikk og avpolitisering og poststrukturalistisk diskursanalyse argumenterer artikkelen for at diskursiv avpolitisering bidrar til at autokratier befester seg, og viser at autoritaer konsolidering ofte finner sted i skjaeringsfeltet mellom nasjonal og internasjonal politikk. Artikkelen retter et saerskilt søkelys på Rancières begrep om kløfter som politikkens scene, og teoretiserer hvordan slike kløfter nøytraliseres i avpolitisering. Artikkelen fremsetter så en metode for å analysere diskursiv avpolitisering empirisk ved å konseptualisere Rancières logikker som idealtypiske avpolitiseringsdiskurser, og illustrerer denne analytiske strategien ved å anvende den på russisk offisiell diskurs i senere år (2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020). Slik forklarer artikkelen hvordan diskursive konstruksjoner har befestet Russland som autokrati: Den viser at autoritaer konsolidering i Russland under Putin muliggjøres av rotfestede avpolitiserende diskurser som (re)produseres og forsterkes i et sammenvevet innenriks-og utenrikspolitisk ** Da artikkelen ble skrevet var forfatteren tilknyttet NUPI. Nåvaerende tilknytning er University of Cambridge.