Russia's Soft Power Discourse: Identity, Status and the Attraction of Power
| Author | Yulia Kiseleva |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9256.12100 |
| Published date | 01 November 2015 |
| Date | 01 November 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
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P O L I T I C S : 2 0 1 5 V O L 3 5 ( 3 - 4 ) , 3 1 6 – 3 2 9
doi: 10.1111/1467-9256.12100
Russia’s Soft Power Discourse: Identity,
Status and the Attraction of Power
Yulia Kiseleva
King’s College London
The article adopts an interpretive approach to explore Russian soft power as a discourse that has emerged in
response to Joseph Nye’s hegemonic narrative of soft power. Russian elites are drawn to soft power for status
and influence in the international system. Their discourse is influenced by Russia’s dual great power identity
shaped by a ‘love–hate’ relationship with the West. When Russia fails to meet the hegemonic criteria for soft
power and recognition, it resorts to a countervailing discourse that claims soft power and great power status in
opposition to the West and its hegemonic discourse.
Keywords: soft power; Russia; great power; identity; status
Introduction
Russian soft power has recently become the subject of research among scholars of Russia, but
the analysis so far has remained limited in scope and theoretical conceptualisation. Two major
trends in the literature stand out: a preoccupation with the use of Russian soft power in the
post-Soviet space, and a focus on the assessment and effectiveness of Russia’s soft power as a
tool of its foreign policy (Dolinskiy, 2013; Makarychev, 2011; Parshin, 2013; Rukavishnikov,
2010; Saari, 2014; Simons, 2014). The latter approach adopts the rationalist lens of Joseph
Nye’s original concept of soft power to evaluate Russia’s soft power performance and capa-
bilities. This assessment exercise has often resulted in an analytical orthodoxy with conclu-
sions about Russia’s ultimate failure to produce soft power (Avgerinos, 2009). Otherwise,
there has been a mixed verdict on the effectiveness of Russian soft power, following tentative
attempts to revisit the notion of attraction beyond the criteria set by Nye (Leonova, 2013;
Kudors, 2010; Orttung, 2010; Tsygankov, 2006). Either way, these conclusions based on
rationalist understandings of soft power often seem to lead to an analytical dead end. This is
in large part due to the overall conceptual and practical difficulty of measuring (soft) power
and its effective use (Baldwin, 1979; Rukavishnikov, 2010, pp. 78–79), as well as the often-
overlooked issue of the subject/recipient of (Russian) soft power and the lack of its
conceptualisation (Lock, 2010).
This article aims to move away from the rationalist approach to soft power and the task to
‘objectively’ measure it. In examining Russian soft power it adopts an interpretive method-
ology to understand why Russian policy makers are interested in soft power, and how this
interest has played out in the official discourse in Russo-Western relations. By drawing on the
social concept of ‘hegemony’ and applying a constructivist/post-structuralist approach to soft
power, I consider the latter as a hegemonic discourse that produces power and relations of
power of its own. The narrative of the importance of soft power in world politics and the
articulation of a particular set of soft power criteria determine who gets to enjoy power and
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status in international relations. With the US, and the West, at the top of the hegemonic
structure, other countries have to situate themselves in relation to, and in interaction with,
the hegemon and its discourse if they are to exercise soft power. Russia finds itself in this
position, too. This article thus makes a contribution to the literature on Russian soft power in
the following ways. First, it introduces Russian soft power as a discourse generated by Russian
elites in pursuit of power and status for their country in international affairs. Second, it adopts
a relational approach to power. If Russian policy makers strive for (soft) power and status,
they have to meet the criteria set by the hegemon and have Russian soft power operate in the
West. The Russian discourse on soft power situates itself in reference to its hegemonic
counterpart, from which it takes some of its characteristics. But the target/recipient of Russian
soft power is not only the West as the hegemon, but also the West as Russia’s Other. While
the latter fact overlaps with Russia’s general desire to fit into the hegemonic structure of soft
power, it also disrupts it. Russia’s perceived inability to attain status and influence from the
Other eventually pushes Russian elites to reframe their soft power discourse in more accom-
modating and ultimately competitive terms. The hegemon and its soft power discourse are
resisted, while Russia’s global status and power are recognised as a given. Thus, I argue that
Russia’s great power identity, contextualised by the country’s dual ‘love–hate’ relationship
with the West, has contributed to the duality of Russia’s discourse on soft power, when both
accepting and rejecting the hegemonic discourse has been seen as a sign of great power status
and (soft) power.
The article will begin by approaching the concept of ‘soft power’ as a hegemonic discourse, as
discussed and critiqued by constructivist and critical theory scholars. It then examines how
Russia’s great power aspirations, embedded in its national identity, have shaped Russian
policy makers’ dual discourse on soft power in the West. Both parts of the discourse – one
accepting the hegemonic West’s criteria for obtaining soft power and one opposing them – will
be discussed in due order. Conclusions and final observations will then follow.
Hegemony and soft power as a discourse
The term ‘soft power’ has been used widely by academics and practitioners to refer to a
phenomenon in world politics that has become increasingly important in the post-Cold War
period: the power of attraction (Nye, 2004; 2011). Policy makers in many countries have
seized on the idea and attempted to utilise it as a foreign policy tool. The creator of the
concept, Joseph Nye (2004), has simply called it ‘the means to success’ in world politics. He
emphasises the growing importance of national values, ideas, domestic and foreign policies
that make up countries’ attraction, which is instrumental in helping states achieve foreign
policy goals and therefore maximise their power vis-à-vis others. For Nye (2004, p. 5),
attraction is the currency of power that can bring about change in the policy behaviour of
other states because the latter naturally ‘want to do’ what they otherwise would not do. Nye
(2004, pp. 11 and 75) also points out that the US, and the developed nations of the West in
general, are most capable of soft power as their national attraction is based on ‘universal’
values.
Despite the clear-cut explanation given above, the analytical utility of ‘soft power’ has been
contested. The term betrays a number of internal tensions in its conceptualisation, which
has prompted scholars to analyse what this representation of soft power does. In other words,
it is imperative to study the performative role of soft power in creating the reality it
describes, and hence the discursive power implicit in the concept (Diez, 2005, p. 626;
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Y U L I A K I S E L E VA
Guzzini, 2005). The next section will present an overview of existing literature and
critique of soft power as a discourse, drawing on Antonio Gramsci’s concept of ‘cultural
hegemony’.
The problematique of soft power and the discourse of ‘soft power’
A major tension in the concept of soft power has been the problematic nature of attraction in
world politics. The issue arises from Joseph Nye’s (2004, pp. 5 and 31–32; 2011, pp. 13 and
16) simultaneous treatment of attraction as both a natural, or given, thing and as the result
of external influence or indirect manipulation, such as persuasion, co-option or agenda-
setting that make one’s interests pose as those of others (Bially Mattern, 2005, p. 591; Fan,
2008, p. 148; Lukes, 2005a, p. 490). Nye uses both ways of conceiving of soft power
interchangeably. Attraction as a social mechanism in interstate relations is hard to identify due
to the obscure nature of cause and effect, and multiple reasons that can facilitate one single
action (such as the fall of the Soviet Union) (Fan, 2008, p. 153; Hall, 2010, pp. 198–207;
Layne, 2010, pp. 53–55). Scholars have been preoccupied with the question of how soft
power actually works, whether it targets policy makers or populations, and under what
circumstances (Layne, 2010, pp. 56–57). Persuasion or agenda-setting, on the other hand, are
arguably more amenable to tracing as they can be contextualised in instances of bilateral
co-operation against instances of non-co-operation between the same states. Nye (2004, pp.
15–16 and 44; 2011, pp. 21 and 99) implicitly endorses this when he emphasises the relational
nature of soft power, which needs to account for context, scope and domain (Geiger, 2010, pp.
89 and 101). Therefore, the premise about the ‘natural’, immutable character of attraction
between states is less tenable; attraction rather amounts to the ability to persuade in a
particular context at a particular time.
The problematic nature of attraction is largely due to Nye’s similarly dual treatment of
national values and culture that underpin soft power. His conceptualisation of values is torn
between a universalistic standpoint and a relational approach. Nye (2004, p. 11) has...
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