Russia’s Neorevisionist Challenge to the Liberal International Order

Abstract

A conventional opinion is that Russia is trying to destroy the liberal international order. Russia indeed defies it, but also justifies its foreign policy with the liberal order’s normative frameworks and reproaches the West for not standing up to these norms. Moreover, Moscow does not present any alternative vision. Russia complains about the internal contradictions of the liberal order: sovereignty vs. intervention, pluralism vs. universality, US hegemony vs. equality and democracy, although it also exploits these contradictions. In fact Russia demands an adjustment of the liberal order rather than its eradication and should, therefore, be classified as a neorevisionist power. Two elements underlie Russia’s at times aggressive foreign policy conduct. The first one, its feeling of being ill-accommodated in the present order, predefines the direction of the policy. The second, the prioritisation of foreign policy over domestic reforms, explains the intensity of Russian discontent and its occasional aggressive manifestations. Russia’s domestic consensus regarding its foreign policy, including views on the liberal international order, facilitates this aggressiveness. Three policy conclusions can be drawn: acknowledging that Russia uses the inherent contradictions of the liberal international order opens up possibilities for dialogue and an eventual overcoming of the crisis; the survival and strengthening of the liberal order depends on its embrace of all major players, including Russia, and hence, the need for some adjustments to the order itself; and finally such adjustments presuppose Russia’s readiness to shoulder responsibility for the (reformed) liberal international order.

Keywords:

• Liberal international order
• Russia
• Russian foreign policy
• multipolarity
• neorevisionism
• neoclassical realism

Acknowledgements

The research was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (project no 17-18-01110).

Notes

¹ Ikenberry,“Future of Liberal World Order: Internationalism” and “Future of Liberal World Order”; Kortunov, Neizbezhnost strannogo mira [Inevitability of a Strange World]; Sorensen, Liberal world order in crisis.

² See, for example, the interview with Henry Kissinger in Goldberg, “World Chaos and World Order”.

³ Kundnani, What is Liberal International Order; Dunne and Flockhart, Liberal World Orders.

⁴ Alcaro, “Liberal Order and its Contestations”.

⁵ Liik, What does Russia want? See also Kagan, Twilight of liberal world order.

⁶ Miller and Lukyanov, Sderzhannost vmesto naporistosti [Restraint instead of Assertiveness], 5.

⁷ Ibid., 7.

⁸ Lavrov, Vystuplenie na Primakov Reading Forum [Speech at the Primakov Reading Forum]; Russian Federation, Concept of Foreign Policy; see also Karaganov, “Buduschii miroporyadok” [“The Future World Order”].

⁹ Miller and Lukyanov, Sderzhannost vmesto naporistosti [Restraint instead of Assertiveness]; Gromyko, “Speech at ’Studying EU-Russian Relations’” conference.

¹⁰ See Sorensen, Liberal world order in crisis; Ikenberry, “Future of Liberal World Order: Internationalism”.

¹¹ International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect.

¹² Haass, “World Order: What Can be Done?”.

¹³ For debates, see Chandler, “International State-building”; and Joseph, “Resilience as embedded neoliberalism”.

¹⁴ Well known in the West, but now forgotten in Russian official discourse, the concept of ‘sovereign democracy’ (developed by Vladislav Surkov) falls into this category.

¹⁵ Fukuyama, The End of History.

¹⁶ Alcaro, “Liberal Order and its Contestations”.

¹⁷ Ikenberry, “Future of Liberal World Order”, 452.

¹⁸ Sorensen, Liberal world order in crisis.

¹⁹ Sakwa, “‘International’ in Russian identity formation”, 449. See, by the same author, “Russia and Europe: Whose Society?” and “Dualism at Home and Abroad”.

²⁰ Russian Federation, Concept of the Foreign Policy. This article does not examine the evolution of Russian foreign policy concepts closely as views have been mostly stable since 2000 (Frear and Mazepus, New Turn or More of Same?). For changes and fine-tuning of Russian foreign policy concepts since 1992, see Romanova, “Russia: Change or Continuity?”.

²¹ Lobell et al., Neoclassical Realism, and Foreign Policy.

²² Alcaro, “Liberal Order and its Contestations”.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Russian Federation, Concept of Foreign Policy.

²⁵ Medvedev, Berlin Speech.

²⁶ Lavrov, Statement and answers.

²⁷ Import substitution policy is based on the idea of decreasing the share of imported goods and substituting them with domestic production. While the arguments for such a policy range from security to economic development, the policy also limits international trade and consequently interdependence with other states.

²⁸ Sorensen, Liberal world order in crisis.

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ Russian Federation, Concept of Foreign Policy.

³¹ Russian Federation, “Conceptsiya vneshnei politiki” [“Concept of Foreign Policy”], 3.

³² Russian Federation, Foreign Policy Concept 2000. See also Romanova, “Russia: Change or Continuity?”.

³³ Russian Federation, Ibid.

³⁴ Russian Federation, Foreign Policy Concept 2008.

³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ Russian Federation, Foreign Policy Concept 2013.

³⁷ Morozov, “Europe”.

³⁸ See, for example, Putin, Meeting of  Valdai International Discussion Club.

³⁹ Ibid.

⁴⁰ See Lavrov, Vystuplenie na Primakov [Primakov Reading Forum] for a recent example.

⁴¹ Trenin, Five-Year Outlook.

⁴² See, for example, Paterson, "Russian President wooing populist parties”; Higginsmay, “Far-Right Fever”; Klapsis, An Unholy Alliance; Polyakova, “Putin and Europe’s Far Right”; "Migrant crisis: Russia and Syria 'weaponising’ migration”, BBC, 2 March 201,. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35706238; "Is Russia 'Weaponizing Refugees' To Advance Its Geopolitical Goals?”, RFERL, 19 February 2016, https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-weaponizing-syrian-refugees-geopolitical-goals/27562604.html; Riley and Robertson, "Russian Cyber Hacks U.S. Electoral System”; Committee to Investigate Russia, Russian Cyber Attacks; Meister, “Russia Blends Cyber Attacks”; Cadwalladr, “Brexit: how Russia pulls strings”; Castle, “Suspecting Russian Meddling”; Lucas, “Truth about Russia and Brexit”; “Catalonia held a referendum. Russia won”, The Washington Post, 2 October 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/catalonia-held-a-referendum-russia-won/2017/10/02/f618cd7c-a798-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html?utm_term=.a794405ea2ed; Scott and Torres, “Catalan referendum fears Russian influence”.

⁴³ Kolesnikov and Makarenko, “Another Rubber Stamp Duma?”. See also Suslov, “‘Crimea Is Ours!’”.

⁴⁴ Sorensen, Liberal world order in crisis, 4.

⁴⁵ Petrov, “Rossiya v 2014-m” [“Russia in 2014”], 58.

⁴⁶ Haaze, “Kak Putin upravlyaet Rossiei” [“How Putin governs Russia”].

⁴⁷ For regular reviews of who is a member of the Politburo, see Minchenko, http://www.minchenko.ru/press/.

⁴⁸ Ministry of Justice, Spisok zaregestrirovannyh politicheskih partii [List of registered political parties].

⁴⁹ See Bremmer, End of the Free Market.

⁵⁰ Mereminskaya, “Gosudarstvo i goskompanii” [“State and state companies”].

⁵¹ On different stages of the relations between the state and business in Russia, see Bounine and Makarkine, Russia: Business and State.

⁵² Mereminskaya, “Gosudarstvo i goskompanii” [“State and state companies”].

⁵³ See also Trenin, Five-Year Outlook.

⁵⁴ Ordzhonikidze, “Russians' Perceptions of Western Values”, 50.

⁵⁵ See, for example, Kolesnikov, ‘Troinoi udar’ [’Triple strike’].

⁵⁶ Levada, Nepoliticheskaya natsiya [A non-political nation].

⁵⁷ Levada, Protestnyi potentsial [Protest potential].

⁵⁸ Levada, Mezhdunarodnye sanktsii [International sanctions].

⁵⁹ Levada, Kritika i sanktsii [Criticism and sanctions].

⁶⁰ Valdai Club, Destruction and New World Order.

⁶¹ Valdai Club, Conflict between Universality and Self-Identity.

⁶² Karaganov, Strategiya dlya Rossii [Strategy for Russia]; “Buduschii miroporyadok” [“A Future world order”]; and Chaotisatsiya mezhdunarodnyh otnoshenii i Rossiya. [Chaotisation of international relations].

⁶³ Miller and Lukyanov, Sderzhannost vmesto naporistosti [Restraint instead of Assertiveness].

⁶⁴ Kortunov, Neizbezhnost strannogo mira [Inevitability of a Strange World].

⁶⁵ Timofeev, Theses on Russia’s Foreign Policy, 5.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 15.

⁶⁷ Kortunov, Neizbezhnost strannogo mira [Inevitability of a Strange World].