Beyond Restoration

Abstract

In this article I explore the role of identity politics in the construction of post-Soviet geopolitics in Estonia. I argue that, in the early 1990s, `restorationist geopolitics' was the dominant conception. It was about invoking a dichotomous differentiation of Estonian identity from Estonia's Russophone population, and a spatial differentiation from Russia in rather exclusionist terms strongly coloured by security concerns as well as justified by the principle of restoration. I argue that this geopolitical conception has more recently given way to a more diverse range of conceptions, and that this transition is best understood in the context of shifts in identity politics. In particular, I argue that a gradual shift from a conflictual to an ambivalent modality of everyday life has enabled a marked emergence of competing modes of identity politics that relies on less dichotomous differentiations of Estonian identity from Russophones, and allows entertaining discourses that are less heavily coloured by Estonia's spatial differentiation from Russia and by the related security concerns. In advancing this argument, I suggest that examining the interplay between everyday life modalities and discourses offers new insights that have so far been mainly overlooked by International Relations constructionism.