Paper Titles & Abstracts

In the last years Russian leadership has been speaking actively on the issue of soft power. On the one side, President Putin mentioned the term "soft power" in quite negative colors, accusing Western powers of misusing it in their own interests. But on the other side, there are some signals (like government's draft on developing Russian soft power abroad) that Russian authorities are trying to work out their own program of "soft power" in the foreign policy. This fact indicates once again that even by rejecting or criticizing Western concepts and practices Russia de facto is inclined to simulate them. At least there is some political will for it. The question emerges whether Russian authorities are able now financially and institutionally to realize the aforementioned goals in soft power. There are many doubts that by existing institutional framework of Russian foreign policy it will be easy to implement the soft power logic. Besides, the crisis of Russian foreign policy from ideational perspective can be explained by the fact that it is very hard to develop soft power abroad when Russian internal practices in governance are in decline. Some Russian experts and analysts formulate the problem more acute: they speak about the absence of Russian "civilizational model" or Russian cultural decadence. Pessimistic mood is widespread even among progressive Russian intelligentsia. Consequently, it can be awaited that Russian use of soft power instruments will embrace only expansion in the number of traditional and Soviet-style festivals abroad and in mentioning the term "soft power" in bureaucratic reports.