Students of Russian history will be familiar with the theme of Westernizers vs Slavophiles (or their Eurasianist variant), a debate that has taken some dramatic twists and turns since its late-Soviet encounter with convergence theory. Where Russian “reformers” once sought Western advice for making a rapid transition to a “normal” democratic capitalist country, today views of the United States in particular tend to be jaundiced, and it is Russian influencers who are making inroads in Western countries where illiberalism is in the ascendant. The current issue of the Russian Social Science Review presents a variety of articles that engage these themes.
In “Anti-American Sentiment in Post-Soviet Russia,” the Levada Center’s Denis Volkov uses polling data to trace the downward trajectory of Russians’ views of the United States from the early 1990s to 2016. “Our Answer for Obama” analyzes some on-the-ground responses to the post-Crimea U.S.-led sanctions regime through norm-breaking, bumper-sticker-type expressions of mockery and defiance. In her reflections on the rivalry between Russia and the United States, Viktoria Zhuravleva points out that both are messianic, deliberately use each other as foils, and lack an institutional framework for conducting a more stable relationship. Emil Pain and Sergei Fediunin make the case that lack of a positive attachment to the nation undermines commitments to civic engagement in “prenational” Russia and the public weal in the “postnational” West. In “A Neoconservative Consensus in Russia?” Andrei Melville describes the way one-time adherents of liberal internationalist worldviews now embrace realpolitik and align on the shared ground of anti-Westernism with religious conservatives who deem Russian traditional values more important than modernity or legality. “The ‘Trump Factor’ and the Changing Face of Globalization” is an early attempt to estimate the scope and impact of Donald Trump’s aggressive disruption of relations with America’s neighbors, traditional allies, and trading partners, and his apparent determination to dismantle the postwar order led by the United States in order to impose his own view of how things should work. Our last two selections exemplify Russian intellectuals’ close encounters not with Anglo-American political science and economics but with Lacan, Foucault, and Althusser (Golubev), Hegel, Freud, and Marcuse (Fortunatova and Valeyeva).
—P.A.K.