Toward a more nuanced understanding of Russia's actions in Ukraine

Traditional theories about international relations focus on rational actors making decisions based on power and military strength. In this paper, Muperi created a new theoretical framework to get a more nuanced understanding of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, specifically Russian decision-making. He demonstrates how their historical narratives, cultural constructs, and cognitive biases interact with structural incentives to shape foreign policy outcomes. Muperi used both qualitative methods like discourse analysis and historical process tracing, and quantitative methods like game theory modeling. One source used in the modeling was the Survey of Russian Elites, Moscow, Russia, 1993-2020, available from the ICPSR Member Archive. It provided survey data on Russian elite perceptions of status rewards. The models Muperi developed enabled him to make several hypotheses about how Russia would act in different scenarios, and to check their accuracy against evidence of what actually happened in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. His research showed that Russian cultural narratives and beliefs played a major role in justifying the annexation of Crimea in 2014. And psychological biases and flawed thinking contributed to Russia’s strategic mistakes when they invaded Ukraine in 2022, which would not have been predicted by less nuanced, traditional models of state behavior conducted by rational actors. 

August 28, 2025