Conservative soft power: liberal soft power bias and the ‘hidden’ attraction of Russia

Abstract

The study of soft power in international relations suffers from a liberal democratic bias. Throughout the literature, liberal concepts and values are assumed to be universal in their appeal. This bias has led scholars to underestimate Russian soft power by instrumentalizing it, that is, to see it purely as the effect of governmentsponsored programs, and to focus solely on the cultural pillar of soft power. This paper argues, alternatively, that Russia's conservative values and illiberal governance models generate admiration and followership, even outside of what Russia claims to be its post-Soviet sphere of influence. Crucially, this admiration and followership perform the traditional function of soft power: generating support for controversial Russian foreign policy decisions. Admitting that soft power can be based on conservative values is necessary not only to understand Russia's foreign policy potential, but also the ability of non-Western states to successfully challenge the Western liberal order.

Cooperation Development Prospects of the Primorsky Krai and China in the Humanitarian Sphere

“…Most Russian authors of scientific works believe that in Russia for many years the role of "soft power" has been underestimated [17,18,19]. Unlike Russia, China uses more efficiently the "soft power" tool [20,21,22]. Recently China has been using particularly active the "soft power" tools to promote its global project "One Belt -One Road" [23,24].…”

Conflictos armados y cobertura mediática: aproximación al aprendizaje de máquina supervisado

“…Se ha demostrado que estas divergencias son especialmente significativas en el caso de RT, donde el peso de los encuadres se encuentra íntimamente relacionado con el comportamiento exterior que está desarrollando la Federación Rusa en los últimos años, lo cual refuerza empíricamente lo que ya hacían otros estudios (Yablokov, 2015;Keating y Kaczmarska, 2019). Por otro lado, aunque en el medio iraní los datos arrojan resultados menos evidentes, las diferencias mediáticas siguen siendo muy significativas.…”

Hvad blev der af »Øst«? – En introduktion og et postscriptum

“…Det er derimod traek, vi finder blandt stort set alle populistiske partier på tvaers af den klassiske opdeling i »Øst« og »Vest«. Selvom der givetvis er større ideologisk spredning indenfor »østeuropaeisk« populisme (Engler, Pytlas & Deegan-Krause, 2019), passer den ny(gen(op))fundne »østeuropaeiske«, »pan-slaviske« eller »eurasiske« politiske og kulturelle identitet og vaerdisaet som fod i hose med den nativistiske og globaliseringskritiske populisme, som vi ser sprede sig i det, vi normalt forbinder med »Vesten« (Keating & Kaczmarska, 2019;Rupnik, 2016, s. 84). Det russiske regimes antivestlige ideologi har således fundet meningsfaeller blandt en raekke vestlige populistiske partier og folkelige bevaegelser på såvel højre som venstre side af det politiske spektrum, og der er mere eller mindre veldokumenterede eksempler på hvordan en raekke af disse har bragt sig i et økonomisk afhaengighedsforhold til Kreml (Dülffer, Luther & Zacharakis, 2015;Klapsis, 2015;Polyakova, 2014;Shekhovtsov, 2018).…”