Moscow's Soft Power Strategy

Abstract

“Faced with external competition, the Kremlin is preoccupied with reviving internal foundations for Russia's soft power appeal.” Second in a series on soft power around the world.

“That’ll Teach Them”: Investigating the Soft Power Conversion Model through the Case of Russian Higher Education

“…While Russia's soft power has been described as largely understudied in the academic literature, several schools of thought exist on the subject [40]. Some studies point out the continuity of Russia's soft power strategies from the Soviet Union to the present day [42]. Others focus on the semantic differences between Nye's understanding of soft power and that of the Russian government [43; 44].…”

Russia and China Respond to Soft Power: Interpretation and Readaptation of a Western Construct

“…Shogo Suzuki (, p. 780) is an exception in his criticism of the Western (largely US‐based) soft power literature on China for its ‘excessive search for threats to Western dominance’. Tsygankov (, ; also Tsygankov and Tsygankov, ) has similarly pointed to the biases inherent in much IR theory, which acts to serve the foreign policy interests of the US. Both scholars criticise Nye's insistence on soft power as a co‐operative non‐zero‐sum game that is meaningful only as long as the actors conform to the systemic rules laid out by US hegemony .…”

Understanding Russia's Soft Power Strategy

“…Many Russian experts are also increasingly persuaded by Nye's idea of smart power where ‘in a smart power strategy, hard and soft [power] reinforce each other’ (Nye, 2013). These analysts argue that while Russia should copy American ‘best practices’, it should also aim to develop a more effective model of soft power strategy (Kosachev, 2012a; Kubyshkin and Sergunin, 2012; Kubyshkin and Tzvetkova, 2013; Lukyanov, 2009; Tsygankov, 2013a and 2013b).…”

“…Some prominent Russian analysts link the concept of soft power to a new, broader, reading of security (Gronskaya and Makarychev, 2010; Rusakova, 2010; Tsygankov, 2013a and 2013b). These analysts believe that in the post-Cold War era ‘security’ includes not only hard (military), but also soft (non-military) dimensions, including economic, political, societal, environmental, human and information strands.…”

“…Several categories addressing this topic can be identified. First, some studies, mainly of an historical character, have focused on the alleged continuity of Russia's present‐day soft power strategies with Soviet‐type propaganda or even Russia's pre‐revolutionary foreign policies (Tsygankov, 2013a and 2013b).…”