Since Ancient Greece, the mission of ‘Diplomacy’ has been the management of relations between two or more states, concerning their strategic and political interests. On the other hand, ‘Development diplomacy’ (DD) has always been and is nowadays an interstate mechanism to fight poverty and hunger, provide assistance to those states, regions, or communities, which are in need of sustainable growth and reliable social, economic, and political institutions. The prime object of development assistance is population, while any form of diplomacy has political leadership and ruling elites of a state as the most important target.
During the Cold War period, two superpowers in their struggle for expansion of spheres of influence have been competing for the Global South, descending with a time being from military flare-ups to non-violent competition. Since the 1970s, the main area of competition was in promotion of unique Soviet or US strategy of political ideology and national socio-economic development in foreign states. The Soviet model has been designed to construct a socialist state-planned economy. On the contrary, US overarching priority was a capitalist market economy.
Such clarity in approaches to the politics of development and to the role of national diplomatic services in their accomplishments disappeared soon after the end of the Cold War. Popular in the 1960s, the US model of the ‘Stages of Growth’, associated with ideas of American economist Walt Whitman Rostow, has been neglected in the 1990s due to the changing international environment in the Global South as well as in the former socialist economies of Central and Eastern Europe (Rostow, 1960). A new agenda of development shifted to issues of human rights, protection of minorities, peacekeeping and security regimes, strengthening of the liberal nature of international trade in goods and services, environmental sustainability, global health, and the right to food and clean drinking water.
Since the moment of its origin and until recently, DD was fully within the sphere of responsibility of governmental structures. Ministries of foreign affairs, economy, and finance were among many others in this field. These bodies historically have acted at the national level of governance. Since the 1950s, however, they began to coordinate efforts with foreign partner institutions within frameworks of the United Nations (UN), including the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (part of the World Bank Group currently) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP). For already 40 years, another inter-governmental organization (IGO), the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is trying to convince its member states, that is, the most economically advanced nations of the world, to target annually 0.7% gross national income (GNI) for Official Development Assistance (ODA). Until now a few states in the world were able to accomplish that aim, including Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden and the UK. Global ODA budget in 2017 was about US$147 billion, and the largest donors were the USA, Germany, the UK, Japan, and France.
Financial aid is a crucial element of the contemporary model of DD. The network of actors who are involved into DD is growing, and it coincides today with the community of key actors in the international system. Still, governmental structures play leading roles in this area. In Germany, for example, all federal ministries provide funds that can be classified as Official Development Statistics (ODA), while a major role belongs to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Federal Foreign Office (Lundsgaarde, 2014, p. 22). In the USA, 27 governmental agencies are involved in the management of ODA resources, while leading positions belong to the State Department and United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The definition of DD declares that it is a special sphere of diplomacy practice which is done through different forms of interstate development assistance and aid. That’s why we should consider the DD as distinctive form of public diplomacy where technical aid and economic assistance are forms of soft power resources of a sovereign state. DD is a privilege of the wealthy and powerful states which use DD as an instrument to reach a wide range of their foreign policy aims. Their activities create a positive image of a state and attract the attention of the international community to the values associated with aid: mutual assistance, sustainable growth, and protection of economically and socially vulnerable groups of population.
The key instrument of DD is ‘aid’. It includes activities consisting of delivering certain resources for free or on conditions which are more favorable than those already existing at international markets. Instruments of DD are material aid (food, goods, and medications), financial aid (loans, donations), and technical aid (transfer of ‘know-how’ and training).
The tremendous success of the UN initiative of the Millennium Development Goals of 2000 and the decision to continue this program for another 15 years have provided global dimension to this sphere. Indeed, diplomatic services of over one hundred nations were involved recently into negotiations on the revision of the Millennium Development Goals and global meetings as, for example, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development. Nevertheless, the level of bilateral interstate relations as well as the paradiplomacy dimension, which include assistance on subnational level (region to region or municipality to municipality), are very important nowadays as well.
DD requires openly expressed political will from both sides of the process: readiness to provide the other state with assistance from the donor’s side and the willingness to accept foreign aid for the recipient. The aim of the assistance should be transparent: to build efficient, accountable, and transparent governance; to improve quality of life for people; and to establish appropriate and reliable institutions.
In this chapter, we consider Development Diplomacy as an integral part of public diplomacy by the Russian Federation. It is an element of Russia’s diplomacy that implements its goals by applying soft power resources, first of all—economic, financial, and intellectual. It goes in line with the foreign policy strategy of Russia and assists in the establishment of mutual understanding and positive interdependence between Russian authorities and the recipient country.
Interdisciplinary Nature of Development Diplomacy
Development assistance requires deep expert knowledge across different sectors of the economy and technology. Consequently, it is impossible without custom-made structures for the management of aid, which should on an ongoing basis cooperate with the national diplomatic service. This later requires a high level of competences in those areas, which are covered by development assistance and require diplomatic support. That’s why we consider DD as an inter-disciplinary sphere in the global political economy, which requires, at least for a while, the involvement of professionals in those areas where it is exercised.
Assistance to the economic development of former colonies as well as aid to states, which have suffered from two world wars and multiple regional conflicts, have been totally concentrated on interaction of state actors and their structures in the executive branch of power (ministries). Nowadays, non-state actors, including international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), play an increasingly larger role in debates on tasks of ‘development’. Their opinion is taken very seriously by those in governmental institutions who are responsible for the formulization of an optimal model of ‘sustainable socio-economic development’. The most powerful instrument which is in disposal of above-mentioned INGOs is an ability to strengthen public awareness on a wide range of issues from environment to low social standards of social policy and the violation of human rights. Politically and ideologically, many INGOs are malicious to the neo-liberal Washington Consensus (Karns & Mingst, 2009, pp. 16–18). Often, they vocally support ideas of direct state intervention into the national economy for the building of a modern economy and see such intervention as natural and legitimate. Participation of INGOs in the achievement of DD aims could be considered as clue marker of willingness of a state to apply DD as strategic instrument of its international politics.
‘Development Diplomacy’ as Part of ‘Public Diplomacy’
Until recently, leading scholars who study public diplomacy didn’t explicitly examine the area of development assistance as an element of ‘soft power’ for economically advanced nations (Cull, 2008; Melissen, 2005; Rana, 2011). Due to its obvious social effect, almost any act of giving aid and assistance to those who suffer from socio-economic hardships can, in itself, be regarded as a form of public diplomacy. Meanwhile, DD goes beyond feeding those who are hungry. Its aim is to put a recipient state on a path of economic growth and social reforms, assistance in integration into the global economy, and the search for its own place in the international division of labor.
From perspectives of the major theories of international relations, agenda of ‘development’, including sustainable development, has been the focus of their attention for several decades. It includes a number of structuralist schools, including those, which share the basic views of realist/nationalist perspectives, as well as several neo-Marxist theories. Since then, the thesis of ‘development’ is associated closely in a worldview of leaders in Africa, Latin America, and some of East Asia’s emerging economies with protection of the domestic market, assistance to selected sectors of national industry, export promotion, and the establishment of administrative/tax barriers on imports. Often, neo-Marxists and classical realists agree with each other on the existential danger of global markets for economically weak states with underdeveloped institutions of market economy and fragile political system. That’s why a model of development, which was actively promoted by Soviet scholars and prominent representatives of the ‘Dependency School’, has presupposed a complex of protectionist measures for closing the domestic market and the refusal of the export of primary commodities in favor of export of end products.
Since the early 1960s, a monopoly of Structuralism in cross-discipline debates on the ‘development’ of former colonies and their integration into global economic system has been broken by liberals from the most economically advanced nations (Lewis, 1955; Rostow, 1960). Being widely represented in parliaments and governments of G-7 and OECD states, monetarists and neo-liberals were forced to formulate their position toward ‘development’ and their role in solving problems of former colonies and other underdeveloped nations. Rapid economic growth in Japan, USA, and Western Europe in the 1980s–1990s resulted in a tremendous increase of resources which were put to the purpose of ODA (Hynes & Scott, 2013). As a side effect of neo-liberal interference into ‘development assistance’, states of the Global South have been considered as atomized actors, which have been forced to compete to limited volumes of financial resources, available for development assistance. Developing nations were advised to give up an idea of policy coordination with the same type of states within the United Nations or regional integration organizations. Competition for limited resources among developing states very often led to destructive consequences for recipient states in the Global South. Being forced to implement radical economic reforms in line with Washington Consensus principles (trade liberalization, privatization, deregulation, avoidance of large fiscal deficits), these states have eliminated sectors of their national economy, cut social programs, opened domestic markers for foreign capitals, and downgraded their role in the global economic system to function as a supplier of natural resources and low-cost labor.
Faced with demands to coordinate the activities of donors and recipients, Global South states were forced to admit foreign advisors to manage their economies. It has followed by the loss of control in the governance process at both the economic and social spheres. Experts of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD (DAC OECD) were very true in their remark that the fragile domestic political situation in these countries required close collaboration between security, diplomatic, economic, and development actors (DAC OECD, 2007). Running up against the inability to provide such coordination, some states in the Global South have outsourced their sovereign rights to manage their domestic economy to experts of IGOs, very often represented by citizens of G-7 member states. Multiple anecdotes on ‘World Bank experts’, who understood almost nothing in domestic socio-economic processes in the Global South, but promulgated everywhere ‘privatization’, liberalization’, ‘hardline monetary policy’, and ‘fiscal economy’, have affirmed widespread proliferation of that practice. Today the international community faces a challenge of ‘customization’ of its efforts to assist development. Development diplomacy, which is implemented at the national level as well as at the level of designated IGOs, should play a crucial role in this process.
Ongoing monitoring
Needs assessment
Mobilization of resources and donor conference
Establishment of offices on the ground
Country assistance strategies
Locally driven development
Debt cancellation
Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration.
All the above-mentioned areas require diplomatic accessary as well as cooperation among donors and recipients. In many cases a ‘donor conference’ is not feasible and can be replaced by regular contacts of diplomats and experts, but the general approach of ISE experts should be welcomed as balanced and realistic.
For Alberto Alesina and David Dollar (1998), development assistance in the majority of cases directly connected to political and strategic reasons, which stay behind the decision of a donor state to assist and readiness of recipient to accept aid. Very often it could be explained by the shared past of former empires (currently donor states) and their colonies (currently recipients), as well as willingness of their elites to secure special relationship in a new post-colonial format—political and technical assistance in frameworks of integration associations and defense alliances and support to former colonies in the processes of their transit to democracy and market economy, as well as in liberalization of their foreign trade regime. Another research work of German scholars (Dreher, Nunnenkamp, & Thiele, 2008) has demonstrated that political motives, in particular, voting at the UN General Assembly, decisively influence decisions of the US Administration to allocate assistance resources via USAID.
We should strengthen transitory status of DD among instruments which could be utilized in the foreign policy of sovereign states. On the one hand, DD is closely associated with economic diplomacy as Nye noted (Nye, 2004). On the other hand, Nye himself and many experts have pointed out that the practice of training foreign students should not be seen as exclusively economic but rather as an element of public diplomacy. In his other book published in 2011, Nye pointed out that economic resources are the sources of both hard and soft power, and they include aid programs (Nye, 2011).
The European Union is widely known for its practice of linking its economic aid with fulfillment of a set of political and economic conditions. Brussels announced ‘conditionality’ as one of the most important principles of its activities in the foreign policy arena, especially toward ACP countries.1 European INGOs have publicized wide-scale debt relief of poor and least developed states, known as Highly Indebted Poor Countries. Good example here is ‘Eurodad’—a dynamic network of 47 European NGOs in 20 countries which pushes governments and powerful business institutions to adopt transformative changes to the global economic and financial system. Mode of INGO operations in DD area includes monitoring of activities of international financial institutions (IFIs), dissemination of information on alarming situations in the Global South, coordination of efforts of multiple stakeholders in this field, as well as putting information pressure on the institutions of legislative and executive power in some states with an aim to promote socio-economic development.
DD of leading states in the international arena, including the Russian Federation, nowadays demonstrates that this form of diplomacy is closely connected to public diplomacy. Democratization of diplomacy implicated that negotiations on development agenda occur not behind closed doors but openly, and the public knows about every move at different stages of negotiation. Economic diplomacy is highly relevant in this area due to its resources and the accumulated experience. It assists to establishment of good political relations between states as well as promotes positive interdependence. Such trust-based relations form an atmosphere of trust and encourage the growth of mutual trade in goods and services, increase the volume of investments, and a higher level of mobility of economically active population.
Development Diplomacy of the USSR
The term ‘development assistance’ was never popular in USSR. Instead, Soviet leaders and diplomats have preferred to speak about the ‘building of socialism’ in developing states. As a rule, Moscow had in mind an elaborated version of the ‘model of development’ which had been imposed to all ‘states of socialist orientation’ regardless of the socio-economic and political situation in any concrete country. Such model had foreseen a rigid set of radical reforms (construction of heavy industry factories, forced collectivization of rural economy, and a cultural revolution) as well as close cooperation of developing nation with the USSR in the foreign policy sphere, Soviet credit arrangements, direct supplies of goods, training of specialists in Soviet universities, as well as the dispatching of Soviet specialists of non-military professions. Typically, this interplay has been accompanied with a large-scale military cooperation, which has included arms sales, training of officers in Soviet military academies, as well as the occasional participation of Soviet military advisers in the establishment of military forces in developing nations, and armed conflicts with domestic political opposition.
We think that such activities of USSR should not be seen as ‘development diplomacy’. The Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t play a prominent role in such activities. Strategic decisions have been made by the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) Central Committee and were exercised by numerous Soviet ‘relevant ministries’.2 Their operations abroad have been coordinated by specialists of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Ministry of Defence. Soviet propaganda has presented a process of socialist camp’s enlargement as intrinsic and relevant to the will of people in different parts of the world. But after ‘Prague Spring’ of 1968, the attractiveness of USSR and its model of ‘socialist development’ had declined significantly. That’s why already in the 1970s, US-Soviet competition for superiority of ‘development models’ has been replaced by a violent confrontation of two superpowers in the Global South, a chain of ‘regional conflicts’ (in fact—proxy wars between Washington and Moscow), and the militarization of interstate relations with developing states. It is revealing that soon after the disintegration of the USSR in 1992, a new Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has only closed nine African embassies, four general consulates, as well as the majority of trade missions and cultural centers as element in the process of ‘optimization’ of Russia’s presence in world affairs.
‘Development Diplomacy’ in Contemporary Russian Foreign Policy
The aim of Russia’s DD coincides with those of its public diplomacy. They are directed toward shaping a positive image of Russia, an attraction to its resources, and opportunities as a partner-state in the international system. Recently, a new target was added to the list—to destroy ‘cordon sanitaire’ which the US Administration and Congress are building around Russia, using instruments of classical diplomacy as well as wide range of tools of economic warfare.
The Executive Office of Russia’s President and the federal government are nowadays two centers for elaboration of the national model of DD. Russia’s first ever G-8 Presidency (in 2006) put issues of development assistance and DD to the center of Moscow’s efforts to stay in the club of global economic leaders. Crisis in Russia’s relations with Western powers, which started in the spring of 2012 after the return of Vladimir Putin to Kremlin for his third presidential term and deepened in spring 2014 due to the crisis in Ukraine and referendum in Crimea, have undermined Moscow’s economic resources and its willingness for scaling its emerging model of DD to regions outside of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Strategic decisions in the sphere of DD are done in Russia at the Presidential Executive Office (Chief of Staff Anton Vaino). There are several subdivisions in the Kremlin, which are permanently or occasionally involved in DD: the Foreign Policy Directorate (Alexander Manzhosin); the Directorate for Interregional Relations and Cultural Contacts with Foreign Countries (Vladimir Chernov); Directorate for Social and Economic Cooperation with the Commonwealth of Independent States Member Countries, the Republic of Abkhazia, and the Republic of South Ossetia (Oleg Govorun). Their decisions and policy recommendations are actualized by structures of executive power at federal and regional levels. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Sergey Lavrov) plays a special role in this process due to its unique legal status among executive power bodies involved in the foreign policy sphere. According to the decree of President Dmitry Medvedev, “On the coordinating role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation in conducting a unified foreign policy line of the Russian Federation”, which came into force on November 8, 2011, it is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is fully responsible for the implementation of measures of DD in foreign countries. In those cases, when activities in the sphere of DD require changes in Russian legislation, it is the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation which traditionally reacts positively to requests from the Kremlin and the federal government of Russian Federation.
Russia’s Version of “DDD”: Diplomacy, Defence, Development
US President Barack Obama and US State Secretary Hillary Clinton had initiated a conceptual redesign of American foreign policy strategy, which was aimed at providing national security via parallel drive in three separate spheres: development, diplomacy and defense.
Concept of ‘Three D’ was imbedded into debates on transformation of contemporary diplomacy by Hillary Clinton (US Department of State, 2010). In her speech at the Brookings Institution on May 27, 2010, US Secretary of State declared: “One of our goals coming into the administration was … to begin to make the case that defence, diplomacy, and development were not separate entities, either in substance or process, but that indeed they had to be viewed as part of an integrated whole and that the whole of government then had to be enlisted in their pursuit” (Garamone, 2010). According to Hillary Clinton, the White House has placed ‘development’ in the center of contemporary US diplomacy. But a closer look at the structure of US budget expenditures shows that there were defense spending, which at all stages of US history after the end of the Cold War had been the top policy priority.
According to the opinion of the Chairman of the 2017 Munich Security Conference Wolfgang Ischinger, the optimal spending target for efficient international engagement should be 3% of GDP/GNI for the most economically developed states. It includes a 2% GDP defense target, 0.7% of GDP spending for Official Development Assistance (ODA), and 0.3% GDP for the functioning of national diplomatic service. German Liberal Party (FDP) even explicitly declared the 3% spending target for ‘3D’ as its policy aim for German federal budget since 2018 (Koenig & Haas, 2017, pp. 3–4).
For the Russian Federation, an idea of tying up security, development, and foreign policy priorities is not new. Today, two types of DD can be accentuated: (1) in the context of post-conflict reconstruction (in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and several countries of Central Asia); (2) in the context of settlement of socio-economic problems, which impede the sustainable development in different countries across the globe. Russian diplomatic missions provide decision-makers in Moscow with well-balanced political analysis of recipient’s domestic and foreign policy. They also play the role of mediators in negotiations on elaboration of concrete plans on practical implementation of DD measures. Kremlin is using Russia’s emerging economic power and targeted international development funding to guarantee national security, as well as to reach political and economic objectives.
The Russian Federation became one of the first countries, which has implemented in practice the above-mentioned ‘Three D’ concept, combining elements of traditional diplomacy, economic assistance, and defense cooperation for advancement of its national interests. Such policy has to be interdisciplinary, and it plays an increasingly larger role in Russia’s positioning in global affairs. Russia’s ‘Three D’ policy actualizes to the full extent in relations with a number of states, which are partners of Russia in such inter-governmental organizations as the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). It is exactly such format (economic integration and defense cooperation as an element of collective security) that gives Moscow an opportunity to experiment with different forms of interstate integration, as well as to provide urgent financial and economic assistance to partners in periods of economic turmoil and threats to their national security.
In contemporary global affairs, Russia behaves as a great power which is able to combine a wide range of civilian and military instruments and policies toward those regions, which Moscow considers as areas of its ‘privileged interests’. This approach is based on the notion that ‘state power’ in contemporary politics is a combination of hard and soft power elements as well as the willingness to use coercive diplomacy in those cases, where it could be feasible. For the Kremlin, coercive diplomacy is based on the conviction that hard power only matters if it can be used for practical purpose (Tkachenko, 2017, p. 135). It also rests on the ability of Russian politicians and public servants to carefully utilize military resources for conflict interventions which are of strategic importance for Russia. That’s why Russia is highly interested in the further improvement of its ‘Three D’ model.
Structural and Regional Aspects of Russia’s Development Diplomacy
Most critical forms of assistance in DD are macroeconomic aid (credit facilities to stabilize exchange rate; balancing deficit of budget, debt forgiveness) and structural aid (education, agriculture, industry, etc.). Russian leaders have declared that national policy in the sphere of development is directed toward enlargement of ODA as soon as it would be coordinated with partners in frameworks of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Group of 20, BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). In June 2007, President Vladimir Putin had enacted the national strategy in the sphere of development: ‘Concept of Russia’s Participation in International Development Assistance’ (Russia’s Participation, 2007). It has presented a vision of the substance and priorities of Russia’s policy concerning the provision of international financial, technical, and humanitarian aid. The long-term priority for Russia has been declared as socio-economic development of recipient countries, resolving crisis situations, and strengthening Russia’s international position and credibility. In April 2014, President Vladimir Putin approved new version of the document: ‘Concept of the Russian Federation’s State Policy in the Area of International Development Assistance’ (Concept, 2014).
- 1.
elimination of poverty and promotion of sustainable socio-economic development;
- 2.
influencing global processes in order to form a stable and just world order based on universally recognized rules of international law and partnership relations among States;
- 3.
responding to natural and man-made disasters and other emergencies;
- 4.
providing support for international efforts and initiatives to improve the transparency, quality, and effectiveness of international development assistance, and active participation in the development of common approaches to the implementation of agreed decisions in that area; and
- 5.
strengthening a positive image of the Russian Federation and its cultural and humanitarian influence in the world (Concept, 2014).
The volume of Russia’s ODA, which includes bilateral and multilateral formats of aid, has been growing consistently since the early 2000s. It was about US$100 million in 2004, US$1,258 billion in 2016, and US$1,193 billion in 2017 (QWIDS OECD, 2018). The analysis of development projects, which have been successfully implemented with Russia’s active anticipation, shows that the top priorities of national DD are public health, food supply security, agriculture, human development, education, and reinforcement of institutional capacity.
Top regional priority for Russia’s DD is the CIS member states. In 2009, Russia initiated the establishment of the EURASEC Anti-Crisis Fund (currently—The Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development) and donated US$7.5 billion to its resources. Another major direction of Russia’s ODA is connected with the World Banks’ structures as well as with global initiatives and multilateral trust funds. For example, in 2016, Russia allocated US$5 million to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization for aid to African countries. In the autumn of 2017, Russia has written off debts of several states in Africa for over US$20 billion (Lavrov, 2018).
DD of Russian Federation uses the sphere of higher and vocation education as its privileged area of activities. Russian universities are accepting foreign students and professionals every year from developing countries free of charge for both degree programs and short-term training. There are over 273,000 foreign students in 2018 in Russia including 15,000 students who have entered their university programs for free due to federal government scholarships distributed via Russian embassies in foreign countries (Ivoilova, 2017).
Interstate trade between Russia and its partners plays a role of key tool in dealing with problems of their socio-economic development. Exports from recipient countries to Russia provide employment opportunities, accelerates their economic growth, and modernizes their old-fashioned socio-economic structure. Equally, exports from Russia to recipient countries help them partly solve problems of technological retooling and establish conditions for economic growth. Due to the relative weakness of Russian economy, it is not able to fully protect partner countries from market risks and guarantee the inflow of investments. Still, Russian diplomats could assist partner-states in dealing with threats of information asymmetry, as well as raising awareness of their public and private institutions in economic and business decision-making. Therefore, economic diplomacy of Russian Federation matters in dealing with challenges of development in partner countries, especially in the CIS.
Non-state actors are nowadays allowed to play an essential role in Russia’s DD, but always under the supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and/or Russian embassies. Russian NGOs are able to deal with different aspects of development including environmental, social, and cultural. They disseminate the best available practices in the above-mentioned areas; provide critical assessment of other states’ development policy; promote involvement of civil society institutions into activities, oriented on putting developing countries on the track of sustainable social and economic growth. In many cases, expertise of NGOs in domestic politics of recipient countries helps to identify the level of institutions of governance on which development efforts are the most acceptable.
Conclusions
The Russian Federation sees itself as a great power rising after a decade of military and economic decline. The principal goal of its contemporary foreign policy is to consolidate great power potential inherited from the USSR and putting its national economy on a track of sustainable socio-economic growth.
The aim of Russia’s DD is shaping its positive image and building a positive perception of the country and its people among other nations. The Kremlin and Russian diplomats utilize educational diplomacy, digital diplomacy, citizen diplomacy, and diaspora diplomacy as instruments of public diplomacy. DD is yet another tool at its disposal of the Russian legislative and executive powers’ institutions, which is utilized for the building of a positive image abroad, improvement of bilateral relations, and post-conflict reconstruction in some cases (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, South Ossetia, Syria, etc.). Russian DD should be treated as a full-fledged element of its public diplomacy. Currently, it is done almost totally by public institutions (ministries and state-controlled corporations). But in the near future, we should expect more active involvement of non-state entities (NGOs ) into Russia’s DD, two-way communication between the Russian government and civil society on all aspects of DD’s agenda. We also should expect declaration of Russia’s long-term DD’s aims, which would go beyond reaction on economic and social shocks as well as great powers’ rivalry in Eurasia and elsewhere. Contemporary DD of major global economic powers is oriented on relationship building, where actors are both public institutions and civil society organizations.
Expert and institutional support of Russian DD is on a low level. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs needs to learn to master different forms of DD, which have been successfully utilized previously by other states. At the top of agenda for Russian diplomacy are challenges of conceptual foresight of socio-economic consequences of measures to be implemented in framework of DD, as well as more active and wide-scale involvement of the growing NGO community of Russia into this area.
A full-fledged US-Russia ‘war of sanctions’ as well as the US-China economic confrontation is undermining the ability of contemporary DD to conciliate strategic interests of sovereign states. Instead of endorsement of positive interdependence, contemporary ‘Three D’ policy of the US Administration encourages mentality of ‘zero-sum game’ and the practice of political conditionality. In response to that, growing volumes of development aid provided by China and Russia to the Global South and CIS states are assigned to undermine the political and economic power of Washington and its ability to convert economic power into foreign policy achievements.
Efficiency criterion should be applied to the utilization of economic and institutional resources for accomplishment of positive foreign policy objectives by means of DD. The previous history of Soviet and American DDs show that it is hinged on the volume of donor’s resources as well as a set of political factors, including the balance of power in some regions and electoral politics in recipient countries. DD should go hand in hand with other instruments of donors’ public diplomacy: awareness-rising campaigns, scientific exchanges, and transfer of know-how. Key indicator for DD’s efficiency is the same as for public diplomacy—building up a positive image of the donor country among citizens of the recipient country as well as in the broader international community.