Abstract
The chapter is devoted to the problem of the formation of “soft power” in the Eurasian space. All attempts to find a common language between states in the world lead to the fact that an appeal to “soft power” appears more and more often on the states' agenda as a tool of achieving the goals of the states, including the states of Eurasian region. The concept of “soft power”, introduced into the circulation of the modern theory of international relations by J. Nye, is being actively discussed in Russia. In recent years, President V. Putin and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia S. Lavrov were repeatedly called upon to multiply the Russian resource of “soft power” for solving foreign policy tasks. Undoubtedly, this is also valid when we speak about Eurasian integration.
TopBackground
In the modern world grand transformations are shattering world politics; foreign policy of the most states is focused on use of military power as a paramount instrument providing their own security. Interestingly, cultural globalization and ever more interdepending world are complementing the military sources with the non-military factors propelled by political motives, which were generalized in the American notion “soft power”. Even back in 1971 R. Keohane and J. Nye in their article “Transnational Relations and World Politics” (Nye, 2004) remarked that the states were no longer the sole actors of international relations and six years later in 1977 in their book “Power and interdependence: world politics” described a new neo-liberal paradigm in the theory of international relations. Although the Russian scholar D. Lanko believes that the term “soft power” was put forward in early 1970s by S. Strange to denote the level of economic development in international politics. However, we rely on the fact the term “soft power” was introduced by J. Nye in 1990 in his book “Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power”, which later on was elaborated by him in the next book “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (Nye, 2004). And cultivating further the neoliberal ideas, it was precisely Keohane and Nye who presented the soft power concept, which accentuates importance of not only military or economic instruments in conducting foreign policy (Transnational Relations and World Politics, 1971). In this context, we are giving consideration to the specific traits of Russian “soft power”, which nowadays is being criticized by the Western researchers, as states are the primary mentors of “soft power” in the Eurasian region (Markushina, Tserpickaya, 2016).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Public Diplomacy (people’s diplomacy): Any of various government-sponsored efforts aimed at communicating directly with foreign publics.
Cultural Diplomacy: A type of public diplomacy and “soft power” that includes the exchange of ideas, information, art, language and other aspects of culture among nations and their peoples in order to foster mutual understanding.
Rossotrudnichestvo is a Federal Agency for the Affairs of the Commonwealth of Independent States: Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation.
Russian World (the Russkiy Mir Foundation): A joint project of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education and Science and supported by both public and private funds. The Foundation’s Board of Trustees consists of prominent Russian academics, cultural figures, and distinguished civil servants.
“Smart power”: The term proposed by J. Nye and means the combination of hard and soft power to form a winning strategy.
“Soft Power”: A concept, proposed by J. Nye, which accentuates importance of not only military or economic instruments in conducting foreign policy.