The Role of Soft Power in the Russia-EU Relations

By Ksenia Smertina

7th International Summer School “Russia

and EU: Legal and Political Issues of International Cooperation”

Structure of the LectureSoft power – meaning and definition,

evolution of the concept, current debates, main critics;

the EU debates on normative and civilian nature of the power;

Russia’s soft power: learning how to be smartMain problems of the Russia-EU soft power

cooperation

Soft, Hard and Smart Poweremerged in the early 90’s in the publications of

US scholar and foreign policy practitioner, Joseph Nye;

Soft power - the power of attraction, which enables one to make others ‘want what you want’, and do what you want, although voluntarily through their cultural affinity with the one who wields the power;

soft power is exercised by state in in a peacefull, cooperative manner

Hard power –use of coersion and payement; ‘smart power’ – a combination of soft and hard

power. Ability to use it porperly: attractive national economic model or effective peace keeping operations conducted by state’s army that at the end contributes positively to the international image of the state that provides such policies.

Smart Power: Instruments and Resourcesinstruments are such

as: public diplomacy, broadcasting, exchange programs, development assistance, disaster reliefs, military-to-military contacts, international PR, reputation management, nation-branding, finally propaganda.

Thus, we can state that soft power (smart power) rests primarily on combination of three resources: its culture (in places where it is attractive to the others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority).

Smart Power: Instruments and ResourcesInstruments

• public diplomacy, • broadcasting, exchange programs, development assistance, disaster

reliefs, military-to-military contacts, international PR, reputation management, nation-branding, finally propaganda

Resources

• culture;• political values ;• foreign policies (need to seen legitimate and having moral authority).

Critics Western-based power structure dominated

by the US viewed as a global hegemon. Presence of hegemonic power makes it

clearly impossible to accumulate soft power without a solid ‘hard power’ base;

Relationships between hard power and soft power – is not really clear and makes a lot of confusion;

How can ordinary people influence foreign policy decisions and foreign policy making? Is it possible in real life?

The EU debates - Normative Power Europe

The ENP was introduced in 2002 by European scholar Ian Manners;

Normative basis of the EU, which predisposes it to act in a normative way in world politics;

3 three sources of ‘normativity’: historical context ;hybrid polity;political legal constitutionalism.

Case study - how the EU and its member states actively mobilize on the abolition of the death penalty worldwide

Civilian and Military PowersCivilian power is an

actor which uses civilian means for persuasion, to pursue civilian ends, and whose foreign policy making process is subject to democratic control or public scrutiny.

Ideal type civilian powers: Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland

Military power – actor which uses military means, relies on coercion to influence other actors, unilaterally pursues ‘military or militarized ends’ and whose foreign policy process is not democratic.

Examples: North Korea, Hitler’s Third Reich

The EU debates on normative vs civilian power

Normative Power

•Based on historical, political and legal assumtions;•Only norms; •No security or common foreign policy

Civilian Power

•non-military force that uses explicitly only such instruments as economic, diplomatic, cultural tools;•Some authors admits the presence of common security politics

Military Power

•use of armed force;•relies on coercion to influence other actors, unilaterally pursues ‘military or militarized ends’ and whose foreign policy process is not democratic

Russia’s soft power: learning how to be smart

Soft power and the importance of public diplomacy came to the attention of Russian policy-makers around the mid-2000s;

Key foreign policy documents – the Foreign Policy Concept of 2008 and the 2010 Addendum, 2013 – contain references to the importance of public diplomacy activities in the fields of cultural and humanitarian cooperation, information support, and positive image making. The notion of soft powers emerges in the FPC of 2013;

Key InstrumentsRossotrudnichestvo (The Federal Agency

for CIS Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation) of the Foreign Ministry (2008);

Valdai International Discussion Club (2004);

Russky Mir Foundation (2007);Presidential Commission to Counter

Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia’s Interests (2009-2012);

Institute for Democracy and Cooperation (2007),

Gorchakov Fund for the Support of Public Diplomacy (2010)

Public Diplomacy‘Information support’ initiatives - Russia Beyond

the Headlines; Russia Today (RT); Events:

political like G-8 summit in Saint Petersburg 2006 and the APEC summit in Vladivostok 2012;

Sports like Universiade 2013, the Winter Olympics in Sochi 2014 and the World Cup in 2018;

Cultural – years of Russia abroad, Eurovision contest 2009 and Russia’s prizewinners positions in this competition etc.

Help of PR professionals - the American-based company Ketchum, that could work on its reputation problem and promote a positive image of Russia abroad.

Peculiarities of Russian use of soft power concept

focus on the region of the former Soviet Union – the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Baltics;

little attention towards Western nations, although Russia’s leaders have long been concerned about the country’s image and perceptions in the West;

Russia’s main soft power instrument is the government ,which makes it balancing between public diplomacy and propaganda.

Main problems of the Russia-EU soft power cooperation we can state that now this resource does not work very well.

Indeed, the image of Russia is improving in Europe, the EU remains the most attractive place for Russian tourists, students, business but still we do not use our soft power possibilities in maximum.

If we look why Russia is popular, we will see that this is because of more or less ‘independent’ factors:the new generation;oil factor;decreased its military influence.