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Abstract
Moscow came late to the soft power game, but made it an integral feature of the drive to restore Russia’s great power status. Russia has a proud cultural legacy and has invested heavily in trying to promote a positive image of the country abroad, for example through the Russia Today television channel. However, the leadership faced the challenge of dealing with the complex legacy of the Soviet past, and finding a viable development model for Russia: it is hard for a country facing economic stagnation to project a positive international image. Russia’s authoritarian turn since 2004, and its use of force in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria, have reinforced negative stereotypes of Russia as a hard power. For these reasons Russian leaders have largely failed to develop soft power as an effective policy tool.
Notes on contributors
Andrey A. Kazantsev is director of the Analytical Center at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). In 2009–2010 he was Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute (Florence), in 2012–2013 a Fellow at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies (Garmisch-Panterkirchen). He holds a PhD from Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU) and Habilitation (Doktor nauk) from MGIMO.
Peter Rutland is a professor of government at Wesleyan University where he has taught since 1989. He is editor of Nationalities Papers and associate editor of Russian Review. In 2016 he was Leverhulme visiting professor at the University of Manchester. Recent articles include ‘Oil and national identity in Russia’ and ‘Russia’s post-soviet elites’.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Lankina and Niemczyk (Citation2015) make the case for Russia’s ability to use soft power effectively to defend is authoritarian political regime.
2. A more literal translation would be ‘fatherland war’ (otechestvennaia voina).
3. Carnegie Moscow Center was placed 24th, IMEMO 32nd, and MGIMO 123rd. http://www.russia-direct.org/analysis/why-even-best-russian-think-tanks-struggle-influence-foreign-policy.
4. Official web site: http://www.russkiymir.ru/fund/.
5. Official web site: http://rs.gov.ru/about.
6. Official web site: http://pravfond.ru/.
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