Russia’s soft power ambitions

The European Union thinks of itself as a ‘soft power’, which in Joseph Nye’s definition is the "ability to get what you want through attraction rather than through coercion" and this power can "be cultivated through relations with allies, economic assistance and cultural exchanges". But few would think that Russia has soft power ambitions as well. The truth is that Russia has started to invest in the infrastructure of a soft power. It is developing a new ideology of ‘sovereign democracy’ and tools to ensure ideological dominance in its near abroad.

The first front for Russia’s new soft power ambition is domestic. President Vladimir Putin’s administration, represented by its deputy chief Vladislav Surkov, has been working on the development of sovereign democracy as a concept which should be the backbone of Russia’s ‘national idea’. It is not easy to grasp what sovereign democracy means exactly. The concept is deliberately vague and speculative and the debate is still ongoing. But its core idea is that Russia has its own set of values. These values are democratic, but they emerge from Russia’s unique historic experience and they are distinct from what the West understands as democracy. As Sergei Ivanov, Russia’s defence minister, puts it: "If there is western democracy, there should be an eastern democracy as well." The emphasis on sovereign democracy was meant as a counter-example to post-revolutionary Ukraine and Georgia, which in Moscow’s view is ruled from the outside.

On paper the ideology of sovereign democracy is probably not different from what is understood in the West by democracy. But the reality is different. The rule of law, protection of minorities, a free press, a viable political opposition, or legally guaranteed property rights are not part of the reality of a sovereign democracy. From the jailing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, from the witch-hunts against Georgians or North Caucasians (after Beslan), to problems with Western businesses on Sakhalin, sovereign democracy raises many questions.

The idea of sovereign democracy has a number of functions. First is to provide Putin’s authoritarianism with respectable democratic clothes in order to strengthen it internally and insulate it from international criticism. Second, to challenge the West’s idea of democracy and human rights as a set of universal values and practices. Even the Russian Orthodox Church is involved in the project. The central question of a high profile and much-publicised congress of the Russian Church was: "Are Western standards of human happiness applicable to all countries and cultures?" The answer is a clear no. In the words of the church’s main ideologue, Miropolit Kirill, Russia should develop its own version of what human rights are and promote it internationally in order to oppose the West’s "dictatorial stance" that all other traditions "must be silenced and subdued".

A second front for Russia’s new ideological drive is external. Sovereign democracy is not just about deflecting criticism from the West, but also about extending it to Russia’s neighbours and denying them their own sovereignty. Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, said: "We are interested in unifying the respective laws of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) into clear legislation on the activity of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The NGOs must be told what problems they should tackle and for what purpose and they should engage in activity of that kind…the constitution and laws must be changed before the wave of orange revolutions spreads to the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)".

Russia’s way to consolidate its political regime and strengthen its dominance over its neighbours is not only coercive, but also creative and pro-active. Gas prices and trade embargoes are not the only tools to extend Russian influence. Russia invests in the development of NGO infrastructure, supports media outlets, youth movements, internet websites, regular conferences and even a publishing house (called Evropa). In the South Caucasus a so-called Caucasus Institute for Democracy with active branches in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, has been very active recently. In Moldova a ‘Free Europe-Moldova Foundation’ was launched. In Ukraine a ‘Eurasian Union of Youth’ has been active in anti-NATO campaigns.

The Russian authorities have been boosting a CIS elections monitoring organisation (CIS-EMO) whose verdicts for elections conducted in the CIS have always been diametrically opposed to OSCE verdicts.

Such outlets are part of the same network. They have links to each other and the same faces, comment-aries and ideas are simultaneously advanced by such outlets. They also make heavy use of such words as ‘democracy’, ‘Europe’ and ‘freedom’ and have nothing to do with these notions. It is just a new emerging type of smart authoritarianism.

• Nicu Popescu is OSI research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies.

The European Union thinks of itself as a ‘soft power’, which in Joseph Nye’s definition is the "ability to get what you want through attraction rather than through coercion" and this power can "be cultivated through relations with allies, economic assistance and cultural exchanges". But few would think that Russia has soft power ambitions as well. The truth is that Russia has started to invest in the infrastructure of a soft power. It is developing a new ideology of ‘sovereign democracy’ and tools to ensure ideological dominance in its near abroad.