From alliance to security community: NATO, Russia, and the power of identity

Focusing on relations between NATO and Russia surrounding the Alliance's decision to enlarge, this paper develops a theory of symbolic power that highlights the relationship between identities, narrative structures, institutions, and legitimate action in the construction of security policy. We demonstrate that such a theory provides a significant contribution to analysing the role of NATO in post-Cold War security, to understanding the evolution of NATO-Russia relations, to assessing the 'promise' of international institutions as a means of structuring security relations, as well as highlighting forms of power at work in the social construction of 'security communities'.