A Close Encounter of The Worst Kind? The Logic of Situated Actors and the Statue Crisis Between Estonia and Russia

The article argues for the need to develop more multicausal accounts of international relations. It uses the Estonian-Russian political crisis over the relocation of the Bronze Soldier monument in 2007 as a case in point, showing how the ideational, material and institutional structures within the wider international society interact. As such, even cases with clear identity-political root causes can benefit from other factors being inserted into the equation when it comes to analysis. The article concludes by arguing that it is only by embracing multicausality that our chances of arriving at fuller and consequently more truthlike accounts of the events out there are improved.