Makarychev Morozov Global Governance

Multilateralism, Multipolarity, and Beyond:A Menu of Russia’s Policy Strategies

�Andrey Makarychev and Viatcheslav Morozov

The article examines the main approaches to multilateralism that coexistin Russian foreign policy thinking. It argues that these approaches must beput in the context of the debate on multipolarity, which comes out as a di-rect opposition to the Western “collective unilateralism.” Both as an ab-stract model and as a concrete practice, multipolarity is not synonymouswith multilateralism; certain visions of a multipolar world, such as great-power management, are hardly compatible with multilateralism if the lat-ter is grounded in the idea of equality of all participants in theinternational system. It is also crucial to take into account the origins ofthe Russian doctrine of multipolarity in the particular context of Russia’suneasy relationship with the West. Against this background, it is clear thatsome traditional foreign policy strategies, such as balance of power, canresult in both unilateralist and multilateralist outcomes. The article’s mainconclusion is that the contradictory dynamics of identity and security, inRussia and in the West, seem to produce a trend in favor of great-powermanagement as the model of future international order. If this is true, itmeans that there is a move toward a type of international society whereegalitarian multilateralism is replaced by a more hierarchical structure.KEYWORDS: Russia, multipolarity, multilateralism, great-power manage-ment, balance of power.

AFTER THE TERRORIST ATTACKS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES IN 2001, THEN

secretary of state Colin Powell famously declared the end of the post–ColdWar era. Although this announcement has been contested repeatedly, andmany alternative dates have been proposed, September 11 definitely was amajor turning point in the development of the international system that wassymbolically located almost exactly at the turn of the century. For Russia,however, the twenty-first century began at least two years earlier, ushered inby NATO’s Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia launched in March1999 and the start of the second Chechen campaign in the fall of the same year.These events concurred—and not accidentally—with the dawn of VladimirPutin’s epoch, thus laying the foundation for Russia as it is today. By the dra-matic moment of President Boris Yeltsin’s resignation on New Year’s Eve2000, the worldview that was to shape Russian foreign policy and domesticpolitics in the years to come had already consolidated and become commonsense for a large majority of the Russians.

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Throughout the 1990s, the new Russian democratic state considered par-ticipation in, and cooperation with, Western-dominated multilateral institu-tions to be largely within its long-term interest. In terms of practical foreignpolicy steps, the pro-Western attitudes peaked in 1990 when the Soviet Unionagreed to the German reunification and supported the US-led coalition in theGulf War. This, however, was a sign of Russia’s weakness at least to the sameextent as of genuine belief in the shared interests with the West. As Yeltsin’sgovernment consolidated in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, its reaction tothe Western policies typically ranged between grudging acceptance and growl-ing resentment. However, it was during that decade that Russia was acceptedto the Council of Europe (1996) and to the Group of 8 (G8; 1997) and signedits first comprehensive agreements with the European Union (EU; 1994) andNATO (1997). It inherited its permanent seat at the UN Security Council fromthe USSR, but used its veto power sparingly. Even if increasingly unhappywith the state of the relationship, Moscow saw no real alternative to integra-tion into the transatlantic multilateral institutions.

The disappointment accumulated over a number of issues such as the situ-ation in the Balkans, the state of affairs in the post-Soviet space, or the criticismof Russia’s actions in Chechnya during the first campaign (launched in 1994).Yet it was the war in Kosovo that actually changed the balance: seen by mostRussians, experts, and ordinary people alike as a cynical abuse of human rightsrhetoric for the sake of geopolitical expansion,1 it destroyed what was left oftrust in Western policies and institutions and, together with rising oil prices,paved the way toward the more assertive and independent foreign policy.

This change involved a reassessment of what Alexei Bogaturov dubs a“bloodless coup in international relations,”2 which supposedly occurred in themid-1990s. What the West baptized a “new international community” turnedout—in Russian eyes—to be a club-like “consolidation of well developeddemocracies” that claimed to incarnate an allegedly indisputable perspectivefor the entire mankind.3 In the minds of many Russian analysts and policy-makers, the NATO intervention in the Balkans is a perfect example of the im-position of Western rules on the neighboring territories. Yet they argue that,apart from this type of “collective unipolarity,” there is an alternative model ofinternational society based on the new subjectivities that non-Western coun-tries are eager to acquire. Bogaturov describes this model as “a conglomerateof enclaves, interacting, but not doomed to mutual assimilation,”4 but it is per-haps better known as the idea of a multipolar world.

At first glance, the world order envisaged by the doctrine of multipolaritycan be favorable to multilateral diplomacy: indeed, as we demonstrate below,multilateralism can be interpreted as one of the possible forms that multipo-larity might take. However, it is crucial to take into account the origins of theRussian doctrine of multipolarity in a particular historical context. Being to alarge extent a reaction against Western “collective unilateralism,” it is more

354 Multilateralism, Multipolarity, and Beyond

often used to legitimize unilateral policies that are designed as countermea-sures to the alleged interventionism of the West. In addition to that, it producesregional and global multilateral solutions that are also seen as balancing exer-cises aimed at the creation of the alternative centers of power. At the sametime, Russian foreign policy can hardly be described as resolutely anti-West-ern: Moscow continues to ally with the EU and the United States in a numberof bilateral and multilateral contexts. Thus, the attitude toward multilateralismin Russian foreign policy thinking and practice is multifaceted and does notfollow a certain straightforward definition of the national interest. It is notonly, and even not mainly, the case of the difference between the areas thatRussia seeks to control and those that it does not.5 Rather, it depends on thecomplex identity dynamics between Russia and the West as well as on the in-terplay between multipolarity and multilateralism as conceptual tools.

In what follows, we consider the main approaches to multilateralism thatcoexist in Russian foreign policy thinking. We believe that, in order to be prop-erly understood, these approaches must be placed in the context of the debateof multipolarity, which is the primary value-laden notion put in direct opposi-tion to the Western collective unilateralism. Multipolarity is not synonymouswith multilateralism; certain visions of a multipolar world, such as great-power management (GPM), are hardly compatible with multilateralism if thelatter is understood as premised on the idea of equality of all participants in theinternational system.6 In the next section, we map out the approaches to mul-tipolarity that are present in the Russian debate. The subsequent sections ex-plore these approaches, focusing first of all on the analysis of the multipolarsolutions that they produce or promote. Our main conclusion is that the con-tradictory dynamics of identity and security concerns both in Russia and in theWest seem to produce a trend in favor of GPM as the model of a future inter-national order. If this is true, it means that we are moving toward a type of in-ternational society where egalitarian multilateralism is replaced by a morehierarchical structure.

Multipolarity UnpackedThe idea of multipolarity established itself as an image of the ideal future worldorder and as a practical policy goal during the time that Evgeny Primakovserved first as minister for foreign affairs (1996–1998) and later as prime min-ister (1998–1999). It gained political legitimacy after the Kosovo campaign andwas financially backed by huge resources with the improvement of Russia’seconomic situation during Putin’s presidency, with Russia now being able to in-vest more in the consolidation of the alternative “poles.” The Foreign PolicyDoctrine, signed by the president in June 2000, states that “Russia shall seek toachieve a multi-polar system of international relations that really reflects the di-versity of the modem [sic] world with its great variety of interest,”7 thus estab-

Andrey Makarychev & Viatcheslav Morozov 355

lishing multipolarity as one of the key policy goals. The most vocal declarationof the principle of multipolarity as directed against the West is perhaps the fa-mous speech by Putin at the Munich Conference on Security Policy in Febru-ary 2007, where he describes the “unipolar world” promoted by the West as “aworld of one master, one sovereign.” He argues that “unilateral, illegitimate ac-tions” of the United States and its allies are detrimental to global security be-cause they produce new conflicts and wars, intensify the nuclear arms race, andlead to a situation where “no-one feels secure. Because no-one can find refugebehind the stronghold of the international law.”8

The arrival of the new administration in 2008 changed the tone of the de-bate and the position of multipolarity on the foreign policy agenda. DmitryMedvedev claims that the imperfections of a unipolar order can be explainedby its potentially divisive nature ending up with the “bloc-based approaches,”9

or the formation of alternative groups of allied states to resist the dominationof the core power(s)—a situation that might be labeled “contested unipolar-ity.”10 However, the new Foreign Policy Doctrine of July 2008 describes mul-tipolarity as an “emerging” phenomenon,”11 thus placing it in the immediatefuture and even perhaps in the present. The dramatic events of the followingmonth shifted the time horizon even further when Foreign Minister SergeyLavrov stated that the unipolar world ceased to exist as a result of Russia’smilitary victory over Georgia.12

Russia thus claims to base its policy on the fact that “the material basis ofthe Western supremacy in global politics has been shaken,” and even though“the right-wing conservative forces” in the United States are trying “to go backto the confrontational policies of the previous administration,” in the long runthese attempts are futile because they run counter to the most fundamentaltrends in global politics and economics.13 Echoing the official discourse, mostRussian policymakers and opinion makers postulate that multipolarity, beinginitially conceived as an academic concept, has gradually transformed into“objective geopolitical reality,” a “fact” of the being, if not an axiom thatneeds neither proofs nor further problematization.14

At the same time, one cannot say that the Russian official position can bereduced to a straightforward dismissal of Western multilateralism as collectiveunilateralism. As evidenced by the discourse of modernization as well as by anumber of concrete foreign policy steps, Moscow does accept Western leader-ship in the normative field, although this acceptance is mostly tacit and neverunproblematic. There is a passage in the 2008 Foreign Policy Doctrine that issymptomatic of Russia’s predicament: while it criticizes “the historic West”for clinging to its “monopoly in global processes,” it nevertheless insists thatthe future intercivilizational “competition between different value systems anddevelopment models” is going to take place “within the framework of univer-sal democratic and market economy principles.”15 What this wording illus-trates is that Russia, even when it opposes the West, cannot present a


meaningful alternative and, thus, has to use the language of liberal democracyto voice its concerns. It is not a coincidence that “sovereign democracy” cameup as the key slogan summing up the essence of Putin’s presidency.16

The complexity of the Russian discourse on multipolarity invites a watch-ful scrutiny of the concept as such. A synthesis of the literature on Russia’sviews of the future of the world order, some of which is discussed below,yields a menu of at least seven policy strategies that are shown in Table 1. Itis formed on the basis of two kinds of distinctions—between interest-basedand normative strategies, and between state-centric strategies and those reach-ing beyond the state and involving a wider gamut of participants. The first di-chotomy is conceptually grounded in Arnold Wolfers’s idea of “milieu” goals,as opposed to possession goals. “Milieu goals are those which, while indi-rectly related to a particular actor’s specific interests, are essentially concernedwith the wider environment within which international relations unfold.”17

Thus, normative policy strategy aims to shape the institutional milieu by reg-ulating it through international regimes, organizations, and law. The second di-chotomy is predicated on the distinction between an international systemdominated by sovereign states, and a transnational community of postsover-eign/post-Westphalian actors with stronger cosmopolitan perspectives. It iswithin the four resulting blocks that different policy strategies can be located.

The identification of these strategies does not necessarily imply asearch for certain groups that allegedly may stay behind each of them. Thisis a typology of scenarios sustained by different articulations of Russia’srole identities, yet neither of them belongs to any specific political group.Neither of them has its “bearers”; the same group may simultaneously ad-here to two or more strategies, thus demonstrating the high volatility of Rus-sia’s role identities.

All of these strategies, despite the specificity of each, share at least twotraits in common. First, they are explicitly anti-imperial in a sense that theychallenge a world order model based on a new edition or revival of the impe-rial forms of subjectivity. The idea of unity, it can be argued, has discredited it-self in Russia due to its proclivity to take imperial form(s). Second, they areabout managing diversity as the constitutive institutional characteristic of in-ternational society. If one rejects the idea of the unipolar world as imperialist,


Table 1 Russia’s Choice of Strategies Toward Multipolarity

Interest-based Strategies Normative Strategies

State-centric strategies • Balance of power Promotion of international democracy• Great-power management• (Transatlantic) multilateralism

“State plus” strategies • Polycentrism “Dialogue of civilizations”• Multiregionality

this leaves open the question of how to keep in check anarchy which, accord-ing to the classical view, presents itself as an inherent feature of internationalsociety.18 Multilateral institutions come out as only one way of dealing with thistask. Moreover, multilateralism can be present as a possible tool in many of theother scenarios described here. Multilateral solutions that in effect are nothingbut instruments to advance other strategies can still be presented as importantin their own right because the prevailing normative order favors multilateralismover coercion and other similar means of imposing order.

In the following analysis of the role played by multilateralism in Russianforeign policy, we explore various strategies to the extent that they rely onmultilateral frameworks and try to explicate the roles played by the latter ineach particular strategy. We start with the most obvious understanding of mul-tilateralism as participation in the multilateral frameworks centered on thetransatlantic community. We then look at how multilateral solutions are builtinto the paradigm of balance of power, which traditionally dominates Russianforeign policy thinking. The recent developments, however, might point in thedirection of a more cooperative system that is described by Hedley Bull asgreat-power management. Finally, we briefly discuss the remaining alternativeapproaches that are all to some extent present in the Russian debate, but do nothave any profound significance for the practice of foreign policy.

Transatlantic Multilateralism or Collective Unilateralism?Multilateralism, taken abstractly, views multipolarity through formalized andinclusive institutionalist lenses, presupposing coalitions of different formatsamong sovereign states. Traditionally, it was in the West that multilateralismgained its popularity as the most “desirable model of multipolarity.”19 And theconventional use of the concept usually implies multilateral frameworkswhere the transatlantic community plays the leading role such as NATO or theOrganization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). To differentiatethis from the other types of multilateralism that we discuss below, we use theterm transatlantic multilateralism to refer to this conventional meaning.

The Russian record of cooperation with the multilateral institutions in thetransatlantic area is uneven at best. As mentioned above, it was in the 1990sthat Russia succeeded in entering major international bodies (the G8 andCouncil of Europe) and establishing formal cooperation with others (NATOand the European Union). It was also quite active in the OSCE framework,inter alia, lobbying for the adoption of the European Security Charter. How-ever, by the time that the charter was ready for signature at the Istanbul sum-mit in November 1999, Russia’s standing within both the OSCE and theCouncil of Europe was severely undermined by the hostilities in Chechnyaand it has never fully recovered.20 A brief period of improvement after the Sep-tember 11 attacks, which resulted in the Rome agreements of May 2002 and


the establishment of the NATO-Russia Council, was soon brought to an end bythe intervention in Iraq, the “color revolutions” in the post-Soviet space, andthe George W. Bush administration’s policy on missile defense.21

The evolution of the Russian political system since 2000 and the estab-lishment of the “vertical of power” damaged relations even further because itled to ever harsher criticism of Russia’s democratic record. European institu-tions have never stopped expressing their concerns over the situation in Rus-sia, and Moscow often pays back by putting a spoke in the wheel. In recentyears, it has threatened to reduce its financial contribution to the OSCE’sbudget; drastically limited the number of OSCE election monitors at the 2007–2008 federal elections; unilaterally suspended the Conventional Forces in Eu-rope Treaty; procrastinated with the ratification of Protocol 14 to the EuropeanConvention on Human Rights, thus delaying the implementation of the reformof the European Court; and was unable to conclude a new treaty with the EUafter the 1994 Partnership and Cooperation Agreement expired in December2007. The only multilateral framework against which Russia seems to have nomajor reservation is the nuclear nonproliferation regime, although its cooper-ation with the West in this context has been marred by constant disputes overthe Iranian nuclear program.22

The Russian-Georgian war of August 2008 clearly demonstratedMoscow’s strong preference for bilateral deals over multilateral frameworks.Georgia’s desire to join the transatlantic multilateral institutions, first of allNATO, was in itself one of the key contributing factors to the escalation of theconflict (although by no means the only one). Yet even more characteristicwere the diplomatic developments after the war broke out. The mediation ofFrench president Nicolas Sarkozy was absolutely decisive for the cease-fireagreement and, as many analysts point out, it was fortunate that it was France,a country that Moscow considers one of its key partners within the EU, whichhappened to hold the rotating EU presidency in the second half of 2008. Onthe contrary, the multilateral frameworks that had tried to contain the conflictsin Abkhazia and South Ossetia since the early 1990s were ignored and evenpartly destroyed by Russia after the war. Thus, Moscow vetoed the prolonga-tion of the OSCE mission’s mandate in Georgia, demanding that it be renamedto acknowledge the sovereign status of the two breakaway regions.23

Russia at least could exert some influence in the West-centered multilat-eral political and security frameworks, even if often it was a type not seen asconstructive by the West. In the economy-oriented institutions of the neolib-eral global society, Russia’s record has been even poorer. Its membership inthe G8 remains incomplete because it does not take part in regular meetings offinance ministers (which, thus, remains “the group of seven”).24 The most il-lustrative, however, is perhaps the story of Russia’s still unfinished accessionto the World Trade Organization (WTO). It applied for membership as far backas 1993, and the talks have dragged on without any vigor since 1995. The


Putin administration took this matter seriously and managed to achieve signif-icant progress by 2006, when the bilateral talks were largely completed. How-ever, for the past five years, the estimated time of Russia’s entry has beendefined by phrases like “before the end of next year.” Although the complica-tions that have remained since 2006 are largely bilateral in nature and concerntrade issues with the EU and the United States, as well as more politicized dis-putes with countries like Georgia and Moldova, this situation is indicative ofhow difficult it is for Russian diplomacy to operate in complex multilateralsettings. Characteristically, the most recent complication on the way towardWTO entry arose when, in June 2009, Prime Minister Putin suddenly declaredthat Russia would join as a member of a Customs Union that also includes Be-larus and Kazakhstan. This effectively postpones membership almost indefi-nitely since Kazakhstan’s progress toward the WTO has been much slowerthan Russia’s and, at best, Belarus is at the beginning of this road. Even thoughthis declaration was revoked (after several months of hesitation), it indicatedthat, at least for a part of the Russian political elites, multilateral solutions inthe space of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have priorityover the transatlantic frameworks.25

President Medvedev’s proposal on the new security architecture in Eu-rope, first formulated in his speech in Berlin in June 2008,26 is also conceptu-ally grounded in the idea of multilateralism. However, the draft EuropeanSecurity Treaty, which was supposed to give legal certainty to this proposal,27

was negotiated with other great powers, primarily on a bilateral basis. TheWestern responses to Medvedev contain much more explicit references to thedesirability of multilateralist agenda, which is strategically appealing to theEU in particular.28

Yet multilateralism can certainly be part of Russia’s relationship with theEU in a different respect. A think tank close to President Medvedev argues thatRussia has to accept the prospects of the EU-CIS and China-CIS multilateralrelationship,29 which enables Moscow to give up ambitions of monopolizingthe post-Soviet region. In developing its multilateral strategy, Moscow certainlyhas to react to such proposals by European experts as, for example, the idea ofa “European security trialogue” to include the EU, Turkey, and Russia.30

To sum up, the goal of integrating into the Western-dominated multilateralstructures is significantly discredited in Russia by the lack of practical results,which is exacerbated by the ideological aversion to the even partial delegationof sovereignty that “thick” multilateral commitments entail. Nevertheless,Russia does recognize the validity of “multivector networking diplomacy” andseems to increasingly rebuff the logic of unilateral actions as ineffective andfutile. In fact, the suspicions against transatlantic multilateralism are, to a largeextent, motivated by the fact that Russia does not see this type of solution astruly multilateral. This position solidified during the Kosovo conflict, whenMoscow first refused to authorize the use of force by a UN Security Council


resolution, and then condemned NATO’s action as unilateral and in violationof the UN Charter. According to Moscow, Security Council Resolution 1244,which was claimed by the NATO allies as the legal basis for Operation AlliedForce, did not authorize the use of military means against the Federal Repub-lic of Yugoslavia.31

The differentiation between “true” multilateralism and collective unilater-alism was also behind Russia’s position on the US-led interventions inAfghanistan in 2002 (which later came under the auspices of NATO) and Iraqin 2003. The intervention in Iraq was vehemently condemned from the outset:Russia, this time supported by France, Germany, and (less vocally) China,blocked the US attempt to obtain Security Council authorization for the opera-tion and did not spare the harshest words to condemn it as a violation of inter-national law. Moscow’s position on the Afghan case was, on the contrary,positively neutral in the beginning and has since evolved into a pragmatic part-nership, especially after the Barack Obama administration managed to signagreements with Russia on the Afghan military transit.32 A similar trend can beobserved in the case of Moscow’s position on Iran. In this case, however, itstarted from a lower ground: under George W. Bush and Putin, there was obvi-ous and open disagreement on the Iranian nuclear problem. Obama andMedvedev managed to find at least some common ground on the issue. In theend, this got as far as Russia’s support of Security Council Resolution 1929 im-posing tougher sanctions on Iran in June 2010 and its abandonment of plans tosupply Tehran with the S-300 air defense installations in September of that year.

It is almost certain, however, that the latter moves necessitated quite a bitof bilateral horse-trading with Washington, which involved the US plans formissile defense. This indicates that the recent progress in cooperation withNATO and the United States can perhaps be better described not as Russia fi-nally linking up with the transatlantic multilateral frameworks, but as rela-tively successful instances of GPM. Before moving on to this model, however,we consider the approach that has deeper roots in the Russian foreign policytradition and, thus, a crucial influence on the understanding of multilateralism.

Balancing the WestIn the Russian perspective, balance of power sometimes looks as the only, orat least the most adequate, model of the multipolar world. It prioritizes sover-eign independence of states on the international arena, and the way that thisconcept is legitimized often is reminiscent of Carl Schmitt’s advocacy of plu-ralism in world politics.33 Most important, however, the Kremlin-promoted“multi-polar world is a direct and unequivocal alternative to globalization.”34

Consequently, this vision is based on the opposition to unilateralism (espe-cially the collective unilateralism of the West) and is grounded in the logic ofsovereign decisions that Russia itself favors and expects from other countries


as well. This can be illustrated by President Medvedev’s repeated suggestionsthat the Western countries need to be pragmatic and guided by their own “gen-uine interests”35 as well as by multiple statements by other members of the po-litical elites to the effect that, within the multipolar society, “each country issupposed to represent its own interests, instead of delegating its functions toEU, NATO and other international organizations.”36 This seemingly anti-institutional and antinormative utterance is a blunt declaration of Russia’smistrust of those forms of international cooperation that entail a dispersal ofsovereignty understood by Moscow as a right to control territories rather thanas a responsibility to population.

It must be emphasized, however, that the dominance of balance of poweras the foreign policy ideology has never been absolute. The normative appealof multilateralism is strong enough to make an impact even on the policieswhose starting point is the perceived need to balance the excessive influenceof the West; in particular, in the post-Soviet space. The creation of the Com-monwealth of Independent States in 1991 would not be a good illustration herebecause it was initially conceived of as a form of a “civilized divorce” aimedat mitigating the consequences of the dissolution of the USSR. The same isprobably valid for the initial impulse for the Collective Security Treaty, ini-tially signed by six CIS member states in Tashkent in May 1992, with threemore partners joining in 1993. However, the subsequent development of in-ternational institutions in the CIS space can be described as strategic use ofRussia’s influence as the former imperial center with a view toward creating acounterbalance to the West. The loose structure of the CIS was supplementedwith a Customs Union of six member states in 1993, which was converted intothe Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC) in 2001. Even though the lat-ter structure remained largely dysfunctional, its institutions were symbolicallymodeled after those of the European Economic Community. Moscow’s at-tempts to initiate real economic integration in the post-Soviet space finallybore fruit with the launch in 2010 of the Customs Union of Belarus, Kaza-khstan, and Russia.37 The three countries managed to agree on a common cus-toms tariff and even declared their aim to set up a Common Economic Space(again, modeled on the European Economic Area) as of 2012.38

The progress in the field of military and security integration has beenequally impressive. The fact that Russian peacekeepers were stationed in Abk-hazia and South Ossetia under a CIS mandate gave Moscow a legitimate wayof supporting the loyal regimes in these self-proclaimed states. The multilat-erally confirmed status of the Russian troops was crucial for the internationalassessment of the August 2008 war since it was difficult to overlook the factthat the military operation launched by Tbilisi involved an attack on the for-mally neutral peacekeeping force. The Tashkent Treaty provided the base forthe establishment in 2002 of the Collective Security Treaty Organization(CSTO), which has since moved beyond purely symbolic integration by, inter


alia, holding regular military exercises and even setting up its own Rapid Re-action Force in 2009. The importance of the CSTO was highlighted during theriots in Kyrgyzstan in June 2010, when Russia was called on by some of itsCSTO partners and NATO member states to intervene and put an end to thehostilities. Had Moscow chosen to do so, it would have created a precedent asbeing the first major peace enforcement operation conducted by Russia in thepost-Soviet space and legitimized by a multilateral institution. Whatever thereasons for the Kremlin’s decision to the contrary, the existence of a strong in-stitutional framework for “balance of power multilateralism” must not beoverlooked.

Last but not least, the creation of the “Shanghai Five” in 1996, to be trans-formed into Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) of six member statesin 2001, brought in another powerful player (China), thus potentially trans-forming the rules of the game. However, the evolution of the SCO probably il-lustrates a different trend in Russia’s use of multilateralism. Since the late1990s and throughout the previous decade, cooperation with China was seenmainly in balancing terms, perhaps also as part of the future Russia-China-India triangle, which was put on the foreign policy agenda by Evgeny Pri-makov, and still figures prominently in the 2008 Foreign Policy Doctrine. Thequestion of how far Russia would go in its balancing policies started to soundalarming when, in 2007–2008, Iran’s full membership was seriously discussedin some quarters. However, this scenario never materialized. What is more, inJune 2010 the SCO adopted formal membership rules stipulating that no coun-try subject to the UN sanctions can join the organization. Overall, there seemsto be a growing concern over what is perceived as China’s excessive influencein Central Asia. The current Russian position on the SCO is to describe it as auseful framework to handle the regional security issues, but to view it as com-plementary, rather than competing, to the expanding cooperation with theUnited States and NATO on Afghanistan and a wider set of security concernsin South and Central Asia.

The initial euphoria after the victorious operation against Georgia in Au-gust 2008 strengthened the appeal of the balance-of-power approach. Russianot only demonstrated serious determination to apply military force in its“near abroad,” but also openly announced its zones of “special interest.”39

What was left unnoticed for a while was the fact that the idea of balancing sug-gests a certain degree of conflictuality between different poles that might beinimical to—but are supposed to contain—each other. In other words, balanceof power presupposes divides and clashes between a number of “poles” thatmight be stronger than Russia. “Those Russians who are eager to achieve mul-tipolarity should be ready to face the new rising centers of power,” a Russianauthor convincingly claims and then continues: “There are absolutely no guar-antees that in a world with unbalanced power centers Russia would be able tosuccessfully pursue a policy of balanced equidistance.”40 Arguably, the imple-


mentation of this version of multipolarity may be conducive to further desta-bilization in the Middle East, strengthening of Iran, military advancement ofChina and North Korea, and so forth.41

It is from here that another serious problem for this concept emerges. Onthe one hand, the balancing strategy indeed presupposes Russia’s associationwith anti-Western identities shaped by the postcolonial type of discourse thatemanates from peripheral or semiperipheral actors. On the other hand, in ad-dressing the most pressing security issues, Russia tends to appeal to—andprefers to deal with—the transatlantic community. These two dispositions maynot sit easily together. It seems that all of these concerns are now seriouslytaken into account by the policymakers in Moscow, which has finally madethem tone down the balance-of-power rhetoric. The resulting trend points inthe direction of a compromise vision of multipolarity that is captured by theconcept of great-power management.

Great-power (Mis)Management: An Old/New Pragmatism?Great-power management was originally understood by Bull as one of the keyinstitutions of international society that functions as a mechanism for coordi-nating policy strategies of key powerholders that prioritizes order over jus-tice.42 In fact, what Bull advocated as GPM was a form of security provisiontuned to police-type activities and, thus, politically sterile.

Yet GPM, or a “concert of great powers”43 (also dubbed by some authors“great power multilateralism”44), may have different meanings in the Russiandiscourse. One meaning is of the geopolitical background: it affirms the util-ity of various “axes” that ought to link Russia to the strongest international ac-tors, including the United States, Germany, or Japan. In its most radicalversion—adduced, in particular, by Alexander Dugin—the Russian govern-ment is urged to make restitution of Kaliningrad and the Kuril Islands in re-turn for privileged relations with Germany and Japan.45

Another—and much more widespread—approach to GPM denotes apragmatically depoliticized type of bargaining between the world poles. Per-haps, a NATO-Russia Council as well as club-like international entities (G7and G8) could exemplify this model of multipolarity. Arguably, the Georgiawar, despite the seemingly deep cleavages between Russia and major Westerngovernments that it provoked, eventually fostered some elements of GPM. Therelations between Russia and NATO, which reached their peak of securitiza-tion in August 2008, have gradually evolved into a more business-as-usualtype of bargaining with concessions from both sides. Under the Obama ad-ministration, the United States cancelled the deployment of antimissile sys-tems in Poland and the Czech Republic, and decreased its involvement incountries that Russia includes in its sphere of interest. Relations between theEU and Russia gained new momentum as a result of the talks betweenMedvedev and Sarkozy. NATO has frozen the accession process for Georgiaand Ukraine, and Russia has increased its involvement in the operation in


Afghanistan and pledged to cooperate against the Somali pirates. All of thesedevelopments seem to corroborate Alexander Astrov’s prediction that GPMtends to evolve into a police-type administration of the most disastrous con-flicts in the world.46

As argued by some authors, the EU-Russia partnership could be seen asan instrument to prevent Russia from pursuing a strategy of balancing the Westthrough aligning with non-Western governments.47 Thus, the Institute for Con-temporary Development (INSOR), an influential Moscow-based think-tank,argues that the EU growth seems to be quite in line with the idea of multipo-larity and calls for strategic partnership with EU in such spheres as the forma-tion of common energy space and joint markets for transportation andtechnology transfer.48 Similarly, Medvedev’s new security architecture pro-posals are being introduced and discussed mainly between Russia, on the onehand, and the EU and NATO, on the other.

It seems that the resulting trend of Russia’s attempts to reconcile theneed to keep reasonably good relations with the West and the politically sig-nificant inertia of the balance-of-power approach points toward an evergreater significance of GPM for the future foreign policy agenda. There are,however, two key questions looming large at this juncture. First, what are thepowers implied by the great-power concept? This question seems to be un-derproblematized by Bull who was certain that powers are states; but morecontemporary—and, arguably, more dynamic—reading of the English schoolmight give a more complex picture. Power is certainly state based, yet pow-ers are no longer limited by the states alone. In fact, powers are increasinglybecoming structural phenomena, incorporating international or supranationalorganization(s) like NATO or the EU—and often nonstate actors as well.This is not a purely theoretical matter: for Russia, this complex compositionof the dominating Western powers definitely causes a large problem. TheKremlin feels disoriented and disadvantaged in situations where its major in-ternational partners do not act on an individual basis supposedly predeter-mined by national interests, as Russia itself prefers to do, but in a moreinstitutional fashion.

Second, there is the question of correlation and contradiction between theexplicitly political traits of the GPM model, on the one hand, and its de-politicized—managerial, in the strict sense—potential, on the other hand. Asthe experience of the past two decades has demonstrated, the questions of lawand order are even more politicized on the international arena than in mostdomestic settings. The legitimacy derived from the idea of a “concert of pow-ers” is problematic at best while an order based on coercion, even if there areenough resources for that, cannot be stable because in some parts of the worldit will inevitably be perceived as oppressive and promote guerilla warfare,terrorism, and other forms of resistance. A return to the more traditional andegalitarian multilateralist agenda therefore can still be in the cards in a morelong-term perspective.


Beyond the Self-interest State-centrismAll in all, the state-plus, interest-based approaches to multipolarity listed inTable 1 have relatively less significance for the understanding of Russia’s takeon multilateralism. However, they still need to be discussed, even if briefly,because a complete absence of an academically conceivable strategy from thepolicy agenda is always symptomatic as to the basic premises on which thispolicy agenda is built.

This is the case, in particular, with polycentrism, which has been a topicof a rather lively debate in the academic literature and even has made it to cer-tain policy contexts. Polycentrism describes situations of multilayered and dif-fuse governance and, thus, emphasizes its distinctive feature of emanatingfrom multiple locales at the same time. The dispersal of power not only has oc-curred across different layers and scales of international relations from thelocal to the global, but also with the emergence of various regulatory mecha-nisms in the private sector alongside those in the public sector. “Polycentric”in this context is synonymous with a globalization-friendly world; transna-tional and cross-boundary relations; and nonterritorial and spatial flows. Apolycentric world embraces such global changes as prevalence of mobile or adhoc coalitions, growing asymmetry and turbulence, the multiplicity of politi-cal and institutional playgrounds for international subjects, and an “open” (i.e.,inclusive and nondiscriminatory) model of regionalism grounded in a networkof “centers of growth” and leaving much space for the participation of nonstateactors.49

Yet this reading of polycentrism is conspicuously absent from the Russ-ian official foreign policy discourse. For many Russian officials, includingForeign Minister Lavrov, polycentrism is synonymous to multipolarity. Thisinterpretation misses a meaningful point: the idea of polycentrism is groundedin a particular domain of theory located at the intersection of transnationalismand a group of postsovereignty/postnational conceptualizations. In a polycen-tric world, the state is not in a position to preserve its modern or Westphaliancharacteristics; it has to undergo deep domestic transformations in reaction tothe growing—perhaps enforced—competition with other actors, sometimesmore resourceful and normatively appealing than the states. It seems, however,that this worldview is completely alien to the contemporary Russian elites,who continue to focus on the idea of a strong paternalistic state which, at theleast, guarantees order and stability and, at best, promotes state-driven mod-ernization.50

The idea of multiregionalism apparently has more resonance with the pol-icymakers in Moscow. It rests on the plurality of “regional orders,” or “a sys-tem of international order built around regional spheres of responsibility.”This is where the idea promoted by the English school concerning “regionalstates-systems or regional international societies” or “many worlds of differ-ent regionalism” originates.51 As Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver describe it,


multiregionalism may be best realizable in the absence of superpowers, which“by definition largely transcend the logic of geography and adjacency in theirsecurity relationships.”52 This conception seems, by and large, to correspondto Russia’s vision of international society. It is symptomatic that multipolaritydiscourse in Russia includes explicit references to the idea of “regionalizationof global politics.”53 Regionalization has two meanings within this context.According to Lavrov, it denotes, on the one hand, “a search for regional solu-tions for conflicts and crises” which, more specifically, means the need toavert possible interventions on the part of external powers, among whichNATO in general and the United States in particular seem to be perceived bythe Kremlin as the most menacing. On the other hand, regionalization couldserve as an insurance mechanism to prevent potential fragmentation of inter-national society as a result of what might be dubbed “de-globalization,” or areversal of the global moment.54

The most paradoxical characteristic of the concept of multiregionalism inboth readings—as a possibility for local crisis management and as an insur-ance against a Hobbesian world—is its ambiguity. Being one of the possibleinterpretations of multipolarity, it by the same token questions Russia’s exclu-sive sphere of influence in its near abroad. Instead of substantiating a Krem-lin-protected area of vital interest that serves as one proof of Russia’s claimsfor the status of a major international pole, the multiregionalism perspectivedisassembles the post-Soviet space into several regions that do not necessarilyremain under Russia’s supervision. In particular, the Western CIS and even theSouth Caucasus can in this perspective become legitimate objects for EU en-largement and neighborhood policies. The EU strategically invests its re-sources and efforts in region building for both pluralizing Europe’s regionalscene and making it more adaptable and sensitive to Europeanization. TheUnited States is supportive of this approach, although in recent years it hasplaced more emphasis on the regions further east. For Russia, playing alongmeans that it would adopt a multilateral perspective much in the spirit ofMedvedev’s proposal for a new European security architecture. However, theinitial design of the European neighborhood policy put Russia in the positionof a policy recipient rather than policymaker, which was definitely unaccept-able to the Kremlin and provoked a rather hostile response. It seems that bynow the chance of finding a multilateral regionalist solution for the Europeanneighborhood has been lost.

Some Russian scholars argue that multipolarity can be successful onlywhen conceptualized as the “dialogue of civilizations,”55 thus reading globaldiversity in cultural, sometimes quite essentialist, terms. Most often, the civi-lizational approach insists on Russia’s standing as one of the world’s civiliza-tions, possessing its own distinctive cultural profile in the world. Besides,Russia often claims to possess an almost unique capability of bridging gapsbetween civilizations, to promote intercivilizational dialogue and a partnership


of civilizations. It is even claimed that Russia “consistently pursues this pol-icy in the United Nations, UNESCO, OSCE and the Council of Europe, aswell as other international and regional organizations, including in the contextof cooperation with the Organization of the Islamic Conference [OIC].”56 Rus-sia’s obtainment of observer status in the OIC in 2005 is probably the only un-ambiguous example of joining a multilateral institution on the basis ofcivilizational approach. It was motivated by the Kremlin’s attempts to redefineRussia’s identity as a country of autochthonous Islam, which was part of abroader attempt to defend the values of civic patriotism against the back-ground of the “war on terror.”57

Yet at a closer look, this hypothetical brokerage appears to be a sort ofwishful thinking aimed basically for domestic consumption since it fails toexplain why the West and the East would not be able to get along without theRussian mediation. Moreover, the notion of civilizational diversity, if it is tohave any meaning distinct from the simple idea of pluralism, must presup-pose certain irreducible cultural differences that prevent civilizations fromcomplete mutual transparency.58 It is difficult to see the added value of thisapproach if it is to be consistently pursued in various multilateral institutionsas mentioned above—if anything, it can hamper, rather than be conducive to,genuine multilateralism. In effect, the main significance of civilizational di-versity for practical foreign policy is the fact that it is used as a tool of “cul-tural protectionism”59 directed against democracy promotion by the West.60

The civilizational approach, however, is not the only one providing nor-mative arguments against Western democratic activism. Paradoxically,democracy promotion can also be contained by the references to interna-tional democracy. The Russian standpoint suggests that it is multipolaritythat fosters the development of democratic institutions in the internationalarena, not vice versa. In other words, the key argument is that all types ofmultipolarity are equivalent to democracy as seen from the international so-ciety perspective.

Exploring the democratic potential of multipolarity, Russian leaders aresometimes inclined to project the language traditionally suited for domestic pur-poses into the domain of international politics. In his Munich speech mentionedearlier, President Putin lambasted the US worldview as presumed upon “one sin-gle center of power” and “one single master, one sovereign,” a situation that “hasnothing to do with democracy.”61 Foreign Minister Lavrov went as far as to callRussia “a territory of freedom” in international society due to its resolution toopenly raise a set of issues that were either ignored or silenced earlier.62

This reading of multipolarity definitely favors multilateral frameworks, solong as the latter are not dominated by the West. It has motivated Russia to ac-tively take part in a number of new international projects, the most importantbeing perhaps the Group of 20 (G-20) and Brazil, Russia, India, China, andSouth Africa (BRICS). The latter, in particular, has grown from a simple de-


scriptive acronym coined by a Goldman Sachs analyst to an institutionalizedinternational arrangement with regular summit meetings. It looks quite proba-ble that cooperation among the countries with a strong disposition towardpostcolonial ideologies has been the key reason why the Russian leaders havestarted to play with anticolonial rhetoric.63

However, there are also serious problems with this approach at the con-ceptual as well as at the practical level. In its promotion of international democ-racy, Moscow does not actually differentiate between partnerships withcountries like Brazil and India, on the one hand, and China, Iran, andVenezuela, on the other hand. In the Kremlin’s worldview, international democ-racy is void of political meaning and reduced to the mere multiplicity of sover-eign states, regardless of the nature of their political regimes. Multipolarity,understood as a simple redistribution of the alleged “world power” among sev-eral poles of force, makes the issues of liberty, free competition, and other coreelements of democracy either irrelevant or equally acceptable along with au-thoritarianism, totalitarianism, the nonmarket economy, and so forth.64 Besides,it seems that the superficial similarity of political rhetoric between Russia and,for instance, some Latin American countries, actually conceals a fundamentaldivergence in the understanding of such key concepts as “people” or “socialjustice.”65 All in all, given the unscrupulousness of the choice of partners inRussia’s promotion of international democracy, it becomes difficult to differ-entiate between this model and the traditional balance of power ideology.

ConclusionThere is no doubt that multilateralism has a normative appeal in the eyes ofRussian policymakers, as they often criticize the West and justify their ownpolicies by referring to the need to avoid unilateral action. At the same time,the meaning of multilateralism in the Russian context is seldom straightfor-ward. It is fundamentally conditioned by the notion of multipolarity, whichplays a key role as the ideological background of foreign policy thinking andpractice. Since the discourse of multipolarity also presents a complex matrixof diverging attitudes, many of which point in the direction of multilateral so-lutions, we can speak about a whole range of multilateral frameworks thatRussia either tries to create or takes part in. The key difference between theseframeworks is defined not in terms of how they are structured or who their(prospective) members are, but rather from the point of view of their ideolog-ical significance. Thus, the multilateralism promoted by the EU and the UnitedStates presupposes that Russia joins the established international institutionswhose agenda is set mostly by the West. However, these approaches are criti-cized by Russia as, in fact, being a form of collective unilateralism, and thiscritical attitude gives rise to a number of alternative visions of a multipolarworld. It appears that at least two of them—balance of power and the promo-


tion of international democracy—lead to a practical search for multilateral so-lutions that could provide an alternative to transatlantic multilateralism. How-ever, Russia’s concern with international democracy is obviously instrumentaland driven by the desire to counterbalance the West, so at least for the timebeing this cannot be described as a viable vision of the future world order. Thebalance of power, on the other hand, looks conspicuously old fashioned andcounterproductive in view of Russia’s increasingly pressing security concerns,especially in Asia.

The trend that results from all these contradictory developments is the in-creasing prominence of GPM as a form of multipolarity that apparently allowsRussia to reconcile its unwillingness to join the transatlantic institutions as ajunior partner and the practical need to cooperate with the EU, NATO, and theUnited States. As a form of international order, GPM is probably further awayfrom multilateralism than any other model of multipolarity, at least if multi-lateralism is understood as being premised on the fundamental equality of allparticipants of the international system. GPM, on the contrary, favors a specialstatus for the great powers as a flip side of greater responsibility for interna-tional stability and security. In this respect, the new pragmatism of many po-litical leaders in the West resonates with the Russian self-perception as a greatpower that is entitled to a special status already by virtue of its size and geopo-litical position. At the same time, a world order based on a concert of powersleaves much to be desired in terms of legitimacy, and thus might prove to beunsustainable in the longer run. �

NotesAndrey Makarychev is professor and research fellow at the Institute for East EuropeanStudies, Free University of Berlin. He has lectured at the Universities of Malmö(Sweden), Odessa (Ukraine), and Baku (Azerbaijan), among others. He has done workfor Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University, Danish Institute of International Relations,and the Center for Conflict Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZurich). He has participated in several research projects with the Center for EuropeanPolicy Studies (Brussels), CIDO (Barcelona), and London School of Economics.

Viatcheslav Morozov is currently professor of EU-Russia Studies and chairman ofthe executive board of the Centre for EU-Russia Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia.Until January 2010, he was associate professor at the School of International Relationsand director of the International Relations and Political Science Program at the SmolnyCollege of Liberal Arts and Sciences (both at St. Petersburg State University, Russia).He has published extensively on Russian national identity and foreign policy, inparticular on Russia’s role in Europe and relations with the European Union. Mostrecently, his work has focused on the Russian interpretation of democracy andsovereignty in the context of poststructuralist and postcolonial social theory.

The work on this article has been supported by the Estonian Science Foundation(grant ETF8295).

1. Viatcheslav Morozov, “Resisting Entropy, Discarding Human Rights: Roman-tic Realism and Securitization of Identity in Russia,” Cooperation and Conflict 37(2002): 409–430.


2. Alexei Bogaturov, “Sindrom pogloscheniya v mirovoy politike,” Pro et Contra4 (1999): 28.

3. Viatcheslav Morozov, “Sovereignty and Democracy in Contemporary Russia:A Modern Subject Faces the Post-Modern World,” Journal of International Relationsand Development 11 (2008): 152–180.

4. Bogaturov, “Sindrom pogloscheniya v mirovoy politike,” p. 40.5. See Robert Legvold, “The Role of Multilateralism in Russian Foreign Policy,”

in Elana Wilson Rowe and Stina Torjesen, eds., The Multilateral Dimension in RussianForeign Policy (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 21–45.

6. See, for example, Elana Wilson Rowe and Stina Torjesen, “Key Features ofRussian Multilateralism,” in Rowe and Torjesen, The Multilateral Dimension in Russ-ian Foreign Policy, pp. 121–241.

7. The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, approved by the presi-dent of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, 28 June 2000, www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/doctrine/econcept.htm.

8. Vladimir Putin, “Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Confer-ence on Security Policy,” 10 February 2007, http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2007/02/10/0138_type82912type82914type82917type84779_118123.shtml.

9. Dmitry Medvedev, speech presented at the World Policy Conference, Evian,France, 8 October 2008, www.kremlin.ru/text/apears/2008/10/207422.shtml.

10. Fred Halliday, “International Relations in a Post-Hegemonic Age,” Interna-tional Affairs 85 (2009): 39.

11. The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, approved by the presi-dent of the Russian Federation, 12 July 2008, http://www.un.int/russia/new/MainRoot/koncept.html.

12. Sergei Lavrov, statement at the UN General Assembly, 27 September 2008,www.un.org/en/ga/63/generaldebate/russia.shtml.

13. Sergei Lavrov, “O Programme effektivnogo ispolzovania na sistemnoi osnovevneshnepoliticheskikh faktorov v tseliakh dolgosrochnogo razvitia Rossiiskoi Federat-sii,” http://www.scribd.com/doc/31280149/. This document was leaked to the RusskyNewsweek magazine, but has never been officially published. For details, see RusskyNewsweek, 11 May 2010, pp. 12–19.

14. Morozov, “Sovereignty and Democracy,” pp. 154, 167–172.15. The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, 2008.16. For a thorough elaboration of this point, see Morozov, “Sovereignty and

Democracy.”17. Nathalie Tocci, “Profiling Normative Foreign Policy: The European Union and

Its Global Partners,” in Nathalie Tocci, ed., Who Is a Normative Foreign Policy Actor?(Brussels: Center for European Policy Studies, 2008), p. 7.

18. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 3rded. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).

19. Grant Charles and Tomas Valasek, Preparing for the Multipolar World: Euro-pean Foreign and Security Policy in 2020, EU 2020 Essay (London: Center for Euro-pean Reform, December 2007).

20. Wolfgang Zellner, “Russia and the OSCE: From High Hopes to Disillusion-ment,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 18 (2005): 389–402.

21. Timothy J. Colton, “Post-Postcommunist Russia, the International Environmentand NATO,” in Aurel Braun, ed., NATO-Russia Relations in the Twenty-First Century(London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 25–38.

22. Alexander A. Pikayev, “Russia’s Attitude Towards Nuclear Non-ProliferationRegimes and Institutions: An Example of Multilateralism?” in Rowe and Torjesen, TheMultilateral Dimension in Russian Foreign Policy, pp. 69–82.


23. Jakub M. Godzimirski, “Russia and the OSCE: From High Expectations to De-nial?” in Rowe and Torjesen, The Multilateral Dimension in Russian Foreign Policy,pp. 121–141.

24. Pavel K. Baev, “Leading in the Concert of Great Powers: Lessons from Rus-sia’s G8 Chairmanship,” in Rowe and Torjesen, The Multilateral Dimension in RussianForeign Policy, pp. 58–68.

25. Andres Åslund, “Why Doesn’t Russia Join the WTO?” Washington Quarterly33 (2010): 49–63.

26. Dmitry Medvedev, “Speech at Meeting with German Political, Parliamentaryand Civic Leaders,” Berlin, 5 June 2008, http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2008/06/05/2203_type82912type82914type84779_202153.shtml.

27. European Security Treaty, draft, 29 November 2009, published on the officialwebsite of the president of Russia: http://eng.news.kremlin.ru/news/275.

28. Helsinki Plus: Towards a Human Security Architecture for Europe, First Reportof the EU-Russia Human Security Study Group (London: London School of Econom-ics: May 2010).

29. Ekonomicheskie interesy i zadachi Rossii v SNG (Moscow: INSOR, 2010), p. 84.30. Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard, The Spectre of a Multipolar Europe (London:

European Council on Foreign Relations, 2010).31. Derek Averre, “From Pristina to Tskhinvali: The Legacy of Operation Allied

Force in Russia’s Relations with the West,” International Affairs 85 (2009): 575–591.32. Jason Motlagh, “With US Approval, Moscow Heads Back to Afghanistan,”

Time, 24 August 2010, www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2012440,00.html.33. Alexandr Filippov, “Universum ili pluriversum?” Kosmopolis, no. 3 (2004): 90.34. Yuriy Fiodorov, “Kriticheskiy vyzov dlia Rossii,” Pro et Contra 4 (1999): 19.35. Dmitry Medvedev, interviewed by the BBC, Sochi, Russia, 26 August 2008,

www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2008/08/205775.shtml.36. Rossiiskiy konservatizm—ideologia partii “Edinaya Rossiya” (Moscow: Cen-

ter for Social Conservative Policy, 2009), p. 36.37. Stephen Aris, “Russia’s Approach to Multilateral Cooperation in the Post-

Soviet Space: CSTO, EurAsEC and SCO,” Russian Analytical Digest 76 (2010): 2–4.38. Pavel K. Baev, “Medvedev Enjoys Foreign Policy ‘Successes,’” Eurasia Daily

Monitor, 13 December 2010, www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=37271&cHash=c60e9b27c6.

39. For an assessment of these and similar claims, see Alexander Astrov, “GreatPower Management Without Great Powers? The Russian-Georgian War of 2008 andGlobal Police/Political Order,” in Alexander Astrov, ed., The Great Power (Mis)Man-agement: The Russian-Georgian War and Its Implications for Global Political Order(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 1–23.

40. Vadim Tsymbursky, “Geopolitika dlia ‘evraziiskoi Atlantidy,’” Pro et Contra 4(1999): 151.

41. Vladimir Kulagin, “Globalnaya ili mirovaya bezopasnost,” InternationalTrends 5, no. 2 (2007): 50.

42. Bull, The Anarchical Society, p. 178.43. Rossiiskiy konservatizm—ideologia partii “Edinaya Rossiya,” p. 37.44. Rowe and Torjesen, The Multilateral Dimension in Russian Foreign Policy, p. 2.45. Alexander Dugin’s interview with “Russia.ru” web portal, 28.05.2009,

www.russia.ru/video/duginkurili.46. Astrov, “Great Power Management Without Great Powers?”47. Jordi Vaquer i Fanes, Focusing Back Again on European Security: The

Medvedev Proposal as an Opportunity (Barcelona: CIDOB, 2010).48. Igor Yurgens, ed., Rossiya—Evropeiskiy Souyz: k novomu kachestvu otnosheniy

(Moscow: Ecoinform, 2008), p. 26.


49. See Jan Scholte, Globalization and Governance: From Statism to Polycen-trism, CSGR Working Paper No. 130/04 (Warwick: University of Warwick, Center forStudy of Globalisation and Regionalisation, 2004); Murat Gul, “The Concept ofChange and James N. Rosenau: Still International Relations?” African Journal of Po-litical Science and International Relations 3 (2009): 199–207, www.academicjournals.org/ajpsir/contents/2009cont/May.htm.

50. For further development of this point, see Viatcheslav Morozov, ModernizingSovereign Democracy? Russian Political Thinking and the Future of the “Reset,”PONARS-Eurasia Policy Memo No. 130 (2010), www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/pepm_130.pdf; Viatcheslav Morozov, Dmitry Medvedev’s Conservative Modern-ization: Reflections on the Yaroslavl Speech, PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 134(2010), www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/pepm_134.pdf.

51.Andrew Hurrell, “One World? Many Worlds? The Place of Regions in the Studyof International Society,” International Affairs 83 (2007): 128.

52. Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, Regions and Powers: The Structure of Interna-tional Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 46.

53. Sergei Lavrov, “Mezhdunarodnie otnoshenia v novoi systeme koordinat,”Rossiyskaya gazeta, 8 October 2009, p. 3.

54. Ibid.55. Boris Martynov, “Mnogopoliarniy ili mnogotsivilizatsionniy mir?” Interna-

tional Trends 7 (2009): 64.56. The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, 2008. Generally speak-

ing, the document is full of references to the civilizational approach.57. See, for example, Vladimir Putin, interviewed by Aljazeera, Moscow, 10 Feb-

ruary 2007, www.kremlin.ru/appears/2007/02/10/2042_type63379_118108.shtml.58. This was the essence of the original Huntingtonian argument. See Samuel Hunt-

ington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72 (1993): 22–49.59. Valerii P. Goregliad, “Rossiya—rimskaya provintsiya?” Nezavisimaya gazeta,

19 March 2002, p. 5.60. Morozov, “Resisting Entropy.”61. Putin, Vystuplenie na Miunkhenskoi konferentsii.62. Sergei Lavrov, “The Present and the Future of Global Politics,” Russia in

Global Affairs 5 (2007): 12–13.63. Viatcheslav Morozov, “Russia’s Counter-Hegemonic Strategies: Discovering a

Postcolonial Identity,” in Cristina Pecequilo, ed., A Rúsia: Desafios Presentes e Fu-turos (Curitiba, Brazil: Juruá, 2010), pp. 191–193.

64. Yuri Fiodorov, “Kriticheskiy vyzov dlia Rossii,” p. 21.65. Elena Pavlova, “Latinoamérica y Rusia: Una aproximación ilusoria,” Foreign

Affairs Latinoamérica 11 (2011): 58–67.


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