Trends of NGOs’ diplomacy as a “soft power” tool in the new international political realms: Case of the Republic of Karelia

Abstract

Introduction: the COVID-19 pandemic and the acute confrontation between Russia and Western countries jeopardized the implementation of a number of international projects in the early 2020s. Closed borders made it much more difficult for the academic and expert community to maintain personal and professional contacts. The opposing sides pursue a policy of “withdrawal culture”. This unfavorable international political environment stimulates the search for new formats of cooperation and rethinking of long-known channels of interaction. In the current foreign policy circumstances, the tools for open dialog and preserving the climate of trust between the regional communities of Russia and foreign countries are rising their importance: even though they turn out to be very limited, these were not completely closed, as it happened at the interstate level. Objectives: to identify the public diplomacy dynamics as an instrument of “soft power” in modern geopolitical conditions using the case of the Republic of Karelia (border region in the North-West of the Russian Federation). Methods: terminology analysis, document analysis and comparative method. Results: the experience of public diplomacy development in the Republic of Karelia, the challenges faced by the participants of international dialogue and the forms of further communication are presented. Conclusions: the depoliticized nature of subnational international interaction will allow the parties to use the potential of “soft power”, identifying the directions significant for the Russian Federation and the conditions for the progressive development of cross-border interactions with different states in the new international political reality.