Analysis of the Impact of Russia’s Sovereign Democracy Model on Central Asian States

Abstract

Russia appeared to be a country that did not eschew from resorting to hard power instruments suchas military intervention and economic sanctions in the post-Cold War period. Moscow fought a battleagainst Georgia over South Ossetia in August 2008. It also sent its military personnel to Crimea tocapture strategic points and to take control of the critical infrastructure in February 2014, shortlybefore the referendum which would decide whether the peninsula would merge with Russia. Russiaalso occasionally cut off natural gas supplies to Georgia and Ukraine in the middle of winter when thesetwo pro-Western states failed to pay their accumulated natural gas debt. Yet, Moscow starting from themid-2000s has been taking serious and systematic steps to strengthen and expand its soft power basein its immediate neighbourhood as well. These efforts speeded up in the wake of colour revolutionsin Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan which resulted in the replacement of friendly governments thatpaid special attention to Russian concerns and sensitivities with new leaders and cadres that aimedto bring their countries closer to the West. This article will examine the Central Asian dimension ofRussia’s soft power policy by borrowing the soft power concept of Joseph Nye. Nye defines soft poweras the capacity to have an impact on or shape the preferences of others by relying upon intangibleassets such as political values, international institutions and culture. So, the study will start with theanalysis of the extent of recognition of Russia’s political values, especially its sovereign democracymodel which prioritizes the demands of the state over those of individuals, lays emphasis on theprinciples of independence, sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs in the intercourse withother states and underlines the primacy of traditional and conservative values such as unity, solidarityand family over individualism, feminism and LGBT rights by the Central Asian political elites. Thearticle will then move on to explore the extent of Russia’s success in exporting the main tenets of thesovereign democracy model to Central Asia by examining some of the agreements, declarations,decisions and practices of the international institutions such as the Commonwealth of IndependentStates, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization whichplay significant role in the region. The study will end with the assessment of the cultural aspect of theRussian soft power in Central Asia by investigating the prevalence of Russian language, Russian highereducation institutions, Russian media and Russian mass entertainment in the region.