scholarly journals Russian Approach to Soft Power Promotion: Conceptual Approaches in Foreign Policy

Author(s):  
Y. Nikitina

Foreign policy is one of the instruments of promoting soft power of a state. According to Joseph Nye, civil society is the main source of a state's international attractiveness. The article analyses how Russian official foreign policy documents present interaction between the state and civil society in order to promote Russian soft power. At the present stage Russian civil society is perceived by state structures as an instrument and not a source of soft power. The article also analyses political values and models of developments as elements of soft power as they are presented in official documents. Russia has a coherent normative model of regional development for the post-Soviet space. For the global level Russia formulates rules of behavior that it would like to see at the international arena, but Russia does not formulate how Russian or regional post-Soviet models of development can contribute to world development.

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-202
Author(s):  
M. M. Nurtazin

In the process of researching the geopolitical transformation of the post-Soviet space as a «Eurasian project», the author uses the method of comparative analysis of the official foreign policy documents of the founding States of the Eurasian economic union. The author, highlighting Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus as subjects of the «integration core» in the post-Soviet space, reinforces the integration aspirations of these countries with economic data indicating their growing interdependence during the decade preceding the creation of the Union in may 2014.It is shown that the sanctions regime imposed by the Western countries on Russia and their negative impact on the economy of the EEU did not reduce the political will of the leaders of the «Troika» to continue further integration.A detailed research of the policy statements (publications) of the political leaders of the EEU «integration core» allows to determine the special role of Kazakhstan and its President N. Nazarbayev in the implementation of this large-scale geopolitical project.The author in considering programmatic foreign policy documents of Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia offers to focus attention on the peculiarities of the positioning of the Eurasian economic union as integration entity. As a result, according to the author, the membership of Belarus in the «Eurasian project» was the result of a hard compromise for the Belarusian people. The Russian example shows that Moscow’s foreign policy vector was initially perceived by the EEU as a global project connecting Europe with the Asia-Pacific region. Now, however, Russia has positioned the EEU as a regional site. The author regards this as a decrease in the status of Eurasian integration and believes that this thesis looks very controversial. Kazakhstan, in turn, sees the «Eurasian project» as an opportunity to join the global economic chains. Thus, Astana attaches to the EEU exclusively global significance.The position of the Kazakh leader in the course of meetings with Western leaders is emphasized. The leader of Kazakhstan traditionally positions the EEU as an adequate and successful economic integration entity with which it is necessary to establish cooperation in all spheres. This allows him to be assigned the status of «advocate» of the «Eurasian project». At the same time, the article notes the support of the Eurasian views of N. Nazarbayev on the ideas of classical Eurasians P. Savitsky, G. Florovsky, N. Trubetskoy, G. Vernadsky, S. Solovyov, L. Gumilev.It is concluded that in the conditions of the remaining anti-Russian sanctions regime Kazakhstan’s participation in the EEU is one of the main factors of the legitimization of integration education at the regional and global levels. 


Author(s):  
I. I. Kalitko

The article is devoted to the study of the potential of mass-cultural factors of “soft power” of modern Russian pop music in the post-Soviet countries. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia’s key goals were to restore and strengthen its political influence in the post-Soviet space, as well as to preserve the socio-cultural space of the “Russian world”. Soft power policies, especially their cultural aspects, are a useful tool for achieving these goals. Today, the sphere of show business and the musical stage are becoming the most accessible and practical tools for promoting the Russian policy of “soft power”. The article examines the prospects of Russian foreign policy influence and the role of the Russian musical variety “soft power”, using the analysis of the popularity of Russian performers in the post-Soviet countries, on the example of Belarus and Kazakhstan.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-141
Author(s):  
A. V. Borisov

The concept of «soft power» has long been the subject of domestic social, political and scientific discourses. At the same time, the current specificity of the Russian understanding of “soft power” as “comprehensive toolkit” for achieving country’s foreign policy objectives without the use of armed violence leads to attempts to define its structure, measure its effectiveness and further optimization. Such an approach has a number of consequences. Firstly, it impoverish the scientific discussion, secondly, it leads to an inefficient building of a communication system with the foreign policy environment. An instrumental approach that prevailed in the domestic political science and foreign policy practice deflect the attention and the resources to create channels and forms of communication to the detriment of its content. The key problem, according to the author, is the content of communication channels, the use of historical memory, as the main resource of “soft power”. An appeal to a common historical past makes it difficult to communicate in the Post-Soviet space, especially during the creation by the Post-Soviet community their national versions of the “long” history and it causes the alarm among political elites in Post-Soviet space.


Author(s):  
Alexandr S. Levchenkov ◽  

The article analyzes the influence of the concepts of the Intermarium and the Baltic-Black Sea Arc on the formation of Ukraine’s foreign policy in 1990 – early 2000. The use of these concepts in American, European and Ukrainian geopolitical thought, which historically included the idea of opposing Russian influence in the region, contributed to the increase in tension and was aimed at further disintegration of the Western flank of the post-Soviet space. The article proves that the design of the Euro-Atlantic vector of Ukraine’s foreign policy was already active under the first two Ukrainian presidents – Leonid Kravchuk (1991–1994) and Leonid Kuchma (1994–2005). One of the concrete attempts to implement the idea of forming a common political, economic, transport and logistics space of the Black Sea-Caspian region with a promising expansion of the cooperation zone to the whole of Eastern Europe and the Eastern Baltic during the presidency of Leonid Kuchma was the foundation and launch of a new regional organization, Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, better known as GUAM (composed by the initial letters of names of member states – Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova; when Uzbekistan was also a member of Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, the name of the organization was GUUAM), which is an alternative to Eurasian projects with the participation of Russia.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-56
Author(s):  
Irina Busygina ◽  
Mikhail Filippov

In this article, we explore the inherent trade-offs and inconsistencies of Russia’s policies toward the post-Soviet space. We argue that attempts to rebuild an image of Russia as a “great power” have actually led to a reduction of Russian influence in the post-Soviet region. The more Russia acted as a “Great Power,” the less credible was its promise to respect the national sovereignty of the former Soviet republics. In 2011, Vladimir Putin declared that during his next term as president, his goal would be to establish a powerful supra-national Eurasian Union capable of becoming one of the poles in a multipolar world. However, Russia’s attempt to force Ukraine to join the Eurasian Union provoked the 2014 crisis. The Ukrainian crisis has de-facto completed the separation of Ukraine and Russia and made successful post-Soviet re-integration around Russia improbable.


Author(s):  
V.A. Smirnov

The article analyzes the potential of Russia's “soft power” and its main content components, such as education, ideology and language influence. The author's point is that despite the presence of an impressive potential of soft power, Russia begins to lose positions not only in the far abroad, but also in the post-Soviet space. It is concluded that the reasons for the failures in many areas (including foreign policy) is the state of Russian management personnel. Research and practice clearly demonstrate that the effectiveness of management is directly predetermined by the quality of management decision-making, which in Russia is at a depressingly low level since the culture of thinking in our country is in decline. It is proved that the management of our country consists of people who, firstly, are not professionals, and secondly, are not united by a common integrative idea. This is the source of many failures in the application of “soft power” even in the CIS.


Author(s):  
Tatiana Nikolayevna Samsonova ◽  
Diana Nikolayevna Tsygankova

The authors of the paper analyze the main directions of the consolidation of modern Russian society, as well as the problems that hinder the implementation of this process. The main factors explaining the fea-tures of the processes of consolidation of Russian society in the XXI century are considered. The col-lapse of the USSR, the resulting crises, the specifics of socio-political processes in the post-Soviet space, the formation of a national idea to a large extent affect the level of cohesion of the country's citizens. It is concluded that for the effective imple-mentation of the process of consolidation of society in modern Russia, it is necessary to overcome a number of problems. In this regard, it is of supreme importance to eliminate socio-economic inequality, corruption in all spheres of life, and optimize the activities of government bodies. The authors em-phasize that the consolidation of modern Russian society is the most important task of the ongoing national policy and requires targeted efforts on the part of both the state and civil society. The im-portance of further sociological studies of the con-solidation processes of Russian society is noted.


Author(s):  
Barbara Pisciotta

AbstractThis paper seeks to develop a new typology of revisionism based on the nature of the aims (territorial/normative/hierarchy of prestige), the means employed (peaceful/violent), and the level of action (regional/global). This will then be used to explain the escalation of Russia's foreign policy from regional to global claims with reference to its military interventions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria and to identify the type of revisionism involved in each of the three Russian military interventions undertaken both inside (Georgia and Ukraine) and outside (Syria) the post-soviet space. The paper is divided into three parts. The first examines the concept of revisionism and suggests a new classification of six types in relation to the means, nature, and level of the claims put forward by revisionist powers. The second discusses the interventions carried out by Russia within its regional area (in Georgia and Ukraine). The third analyses the intervention in Syria and highlights the escalation of Russian claims from the regional to the global level.


Author(s):  
Elena Stetsko

The сhapter studies the relationship between the development of integration processes and the development of civil society in the post-Soviet space and, in particular, in the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union. It consists of five parts. The introduction presents the main trends and vectors of integration processes in the post-Soviet space. The first part considers the concept of “civil society” and its features in Western and Russian political thought. The second part highlights the features of building a civil society in the independent states of the EAEU. General points and differences in the emerging civil societies of the EAEU countries are revealed. Further, in the fourth part, the “Eurasian idea” is considered in terms of its compatibility with the peculiarities of the development of civil society in the post-Soviet space. The final part proposes a discussion topic on the possibility of political integration within the EAEU.


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