Imagining the “World Majority”: The Discursive Construction of the Collective Non-West and the Transformation of Narrative Templates in Russian Official Discourse

Abstract

This article analyzes how the idea of a collective non-West was constructed in the Russian official discourse from 2012 to 2024 and how this process was linked to a rethinking of the world order and of Russia’s macropolitical identity. Theoretically, the study draws on constructivism, critical geopolitics, and James Wertsch’s concept of “narrative templates”. Methodologically, it combines thematic coding with an analysis of thematic co-occurrence, making it possible to identify stable semantic linkages and reconstruct narrative templates. The findings show that, before 2022, official discourse was dominated by differentiating representations of non-Western space, organized around levels of development and state capacity. After 2022, the rhetoric shifted sharply toward strategic essentialization, reducing heterogeneous regions to the “world majority” and the “Global South and East.” The article identifies four discursive strategies through which this community is constructed: nomination, shared ascent, shared victimhood, and common interests and values. On the basis of a co-occurrence matrix, it reconstructs three ideal-typical narrative templates: “concert of great powers”, “competition”, and “binary opposition and revolution”. The article argues that the image of the non-West, whether differentiated or collective, serves as a resource for constructing Russia’s macropolitical identity. In the former case, it functions as a manageable or comparable space, allowing Russia to position itself as a “responsible power” or a “developmental state.” In the latter, it is framed as a moral-political community that legitimizes Russia’s anti-hegemonic and defensive selfdescription after 2022. The author concludes that the “sudden” emergence of the collective non-West in Russian political discourse is not merely a change in terminology, but a symptom of a broader transformation of narrative templates.