What Makes Autocracies’ Soft Power Strategies Special? Evidence from Russia and China

Abstract

The paper problematizes the national soft power strategies of authoritarian states arguing that many of their features stem from those countries’ political regime. In particular, the author focuses on such features as actors involved in soft power policies, the public media’s international and domestic rhetoric, the presence or absence of ideological commitments, strategies’ proactiveness/reactiveness as well as their long- and short-termness. The author presents his argumentation in a fashion similar to what is called theory-building process tracing: first, he shows causal links between an autocratic political regime and each of those features, and then illustrates them with relevant examples taken from case studies and media publications on the soft power strategies of contemporary Russia and China.