Exception and analogical reasoning in Ukrainian and Russian political discourses

This chapter critically discusses the applicability of the concepts of exception, exceptionalism, and exceptionalization shaping the Russian-Ukrainian war. We treat the exception as a discursive construct that may be part of different political rationales. Within this analytical framework, we juxtapose exceptions with analogical reasoning, a foreign policy analysis concept that is based on a different logic of constructing discursive chains of events with comparable meanings. We argue that the saturation of foreign policy narratives with systematic references to seemingly similar past events is conducive to de-exceptionalization of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, we show how differently this discursive mechanism operates in Ukraine and Russia and draw practical implications from that. We also discuss how the discursive nature of exception might be understood: both Ukrainian and Russian discourses on exceptions are dislocated but each one in their own way. For Russia, exceptionalism (understood primarily as self-detachment from international norms and institutions) is an indispensable element of its power toolkit. As for Ukraine, it exceptionalizes Russian atrocities committed during the war, yet at the same time inscribes them in discursively constructed chains of equivalences aimed at giving legal qualifications to crimes against humanity, genocide, and terrorism.