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.
