Authors

Discussion

Authoritarian Decolonisation? Russia’s Reversal of the Western Security Script

In recent years, Russia has increasingly framed its foreign and security policies in the language of anti-colonial resistance and global multipolarity. From official rhetoric that positions Moscow as the defender of “traditional sovereignty” against Western hegemony to partnerships with states in the Global South, Russian elites have sought to cast the country as the vanguard of a decolonised international order. Yet this self-styled role raises an analytical paradox: while appropriating the discourse of decolonisation, Russia simultaneously advances authoritarian security practices at home and abroad, ranging from counterterrorism campaigns that curtail civil liberties to expeditionary interventions that export coercive models of governance. This paper interrogates the contradictions of what might be termed “authoritarian decolonisation” — a strategic reversal of the Western security script that recasts the struggle against liberal universalism as a moral, even emancipatory, project. By examining Russia’s domestic counterterrorism frameworks, its interventions in Chechnya, Syria, and Ukraine, and its growing security partnerships in Africa, the paper highlights how Russia leverages the language of anti-imperialism while reproducing hierarchical and illiberal forms of control. In doing so, the paper contributes to debates on how decolonisation is mobilised beyond its original contexts and how security practices are reshaped in the global contest for legitimacy. It argues that Russia’s case compels us to think more critically about the appropriation of decolonial discourse by authoritarian states, and the implications this has for the study of security, sovereignty, and postcolonial international relations.