Between a liberal and a hard place: Russia and global ideological competition

Abstract

The National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO) report points out that the world would experience an ‘‘increasing competition between states in the economic, military and ideological spheres’’ (emphasis added). Even though on the face of it, this passage might sound as a phrase from the Cold War era, the ideological competition around the world (Adamson, 2005) is intensifying with historical levels of polarization (Somer and McCoy, 2018). Russia occupies in this regard a favorable position as it may seem attractive to diverging ideological fractions: from different segments of conservative movement around the world, such as White nationalists who see Russia as ‘‘the last White country’’ to Christian fundamentalists who mistakenly assume that Russia has a homogenous Orthodox population; from opponents of perceived American hegemony to quasiliberal Western public intellectuals and politicians who depend on Russia to perpetuate their Orientalist and civilizationalist narratives (Ragozin, 2020). In other words, Russia as a country has become a simulacrum in the global ideological competition that reflects the preexisting biases of diverse ideologues. While the multipolarity thesis has been firmly established in Russian foreign policy doctrines, several underlying philosophical questions are a subject of fierce debate in what is left of the Russian public sphere. Notions of ‘‘new ethics,’’ ‘‘cancel culture,’’ #metoo, Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, debates on liberalism, political correctness, and feminism have become staples in Russia as well. While the ideological competition is not limited to the West-centered debates and Russia is, in fact, pursuing closer relationships with countries like China and India, as the IMEMO report points out, ideologically, it is unlikely to embrace non-Western thought and ideology such as Hindutva (Thobani, 2019) even though it does have some ideological resonances with Russian conservative thought. Hence, this essay will concentrate on the way Russian society engages with Western ideological debates.