Identity and War: What the Russian War on Ukraine Teaches Us About the Causes of War

About the Lecture: The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has reinvigorated debates about the causes of war. The question of why Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale war in 2022 does not seem to be answered by many usual explanations, e.g. material interests or threats to international security. Herrera argues that Russia’s imperial ambitions and sense of Russian national identity heavily shaped Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the full-scale invasion. Hence, one of the challenges for International Relations theory is the need to update and improve our understanding of the role of identity in conflict and political violence. In this talk, Herrera maps out a theoretical framework for identity and conflict, and then discusses relevant aspects of identity in both Ukraine and Russia, with an emphasis on how identities might have contributed to the war and been changed as a consequence. About the Speaker: Yoshiko M. Herrera is Professor of Political Science at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on Russian and Eurasian politics, identity, and political economy. Herrera teaches courses on comparative politics, social identities and diversity, and a new course on the Russian war on Ukraine. She is also a former director of the Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia at UW-Madison. She is the author of two books and an influential co-edited volume on Measuring Identity. Her most recent co-authored article is “Don’t Look Back in Anger: Cooperation Despite Conflicting Historical Narratives” published in the "American Political Science Review."