CULTUR RUS IN ERA post-9/11 geopolitice:

Masca de Proteus Revisited *

John O'Loughlin
Institutul de Stiinte Comportamentale, Universitatea din Colorado la Boulder
E-mail: johno@colorado.edu
Gearoid Tuathail (Gerard Toal)
Guvernul i Afaceri Internaionale, Institutul Politehnic Virginia i Universitatea de
Stat,
Centrul de Alexandria, Virginia
E-mail: toalg@vt.edu
Vladimir Kolossov
Institutul de Geografie, Academia Rus de tiine, Moscova
e-mail: vladk@online.ru
* Aceasta cercetare este sustinuta de un grant, numrul 0203087, din Statele
Unite National Science
Fundaia, Geografie i tiina Programul Regional. Autorii mulumesc Dr. Elena
Petrenko a fundaiei de Opinie Public (FOM), la Moscova, n care a lucrat
ndeaproape
Dezvoltarea chestionarului pentru ancheta la nivel naional i care a supervizat i
ITS de succes
La timp de finalizare.
1
REZUMAT
n aceast lucrare, vom construi pe activitatea de Graham Smith Cine a fost
Dezvoltarea unui geopolitica critic
din Rusia n lucrarea sa postum din 1999 publicat n aceast revist. Ca i
Smith, am legtur ntrEvoluand Orientri geopolitice a Rusiei la cutarea unei identiti post-sovietice
pentru noile
de stat i conducerea sa politic. n timp ce Smith a vzut natura a geopoliticii
ruse de a avea
Mti proteice, argumentul nostru este c conducerea statului rus, n special
Preedintele Putin, Cine a adoptat cu succes pe o strategie proteic s fac apel
la prostii
elemente ale spectrului de frecvene geopolitice ruse. Bazat pe un sondaj la nivel
naional n primvara anului 2002,
Identificarea ase grupuri noi, n opinia public rus de caracteristici sociodemografice i noi
Fiecare grup se refer la principalele orientri geopolitice Concurena n Rusia
contemporan ca
Reflectat n rezultatele Dumei de 2003 i 2004, alegerile prezideniale din Rusia.
Cuvinte cheie: Rusia, critic geopolitica, opinia public, orientri geopolitice,
Vladimir Putin,
alegeri
1
n moarte prematura articol trecut istoric nainte de a, publicat n aceast revist,

n 1999, Graham Smith

pionier in dezvoltarea unei geopoliticii critice perspectiv asupra gndirii
geopolitice ruse.
Articolul lui Smith a fcut trei argumente importante. n primul rnd, am conectat
reformulri schimbare
n politica extern a rusi au descoperit n anii 1990 la o "criz de identitate
sistematice mai naionale" n
Rusia (Smith 1999a, 481). Smith geopolitica sa neles c elita politic extern
mai mult dect
Discursul, a fost de asemenea despre identitatea de Rusia i locul su n lume,
dup prbuirea
patriei sovietice i pierderea statutului de mare putere. Politica i publice a
implicat aviz.
Lui alte lucrri care merge paralel raionament se conecteze la identitatea
naional geopolitica (de exemplu, Dijkink,
1996; Neumann, 1999). Identitatea naional este modelat de elitele politice i
nu exist
Separati de la discursul politic i lupta politic i, prin urmare, aceasta cannnot fi
static sau
etern (Zevelev, 2002).
n al doilea rnd, Smith din 1999 articol subliniat Apariia unui "nou Eurasianism"
n Rusia
Care a descris cum a avea schimbarea i doctrin ambiguu cu avocai n
ntreaga Politice
spectrului de frecvene. Eurasianism este afirmarea unui spaiu distinct pentru
Separate civilizaiei din Rusia
de Vest i din Asia. C Smith combatant, Dup o perioad iniial de "Westernliberal" la nceputul anilor
n cazul n care discursul de 1990 Rusia "civilizaia occidental reintregirea" a
fost extrem, Rus
Discursul de politic extern nclinat Ctre o Eurasianism nc vag punct de
vedere politic vital. "Eurasia" este o
Cui utile maleabilitatea caracteristic de abstractizare este esenial
STI. Evocnd Proteus, o mitic
forma-shifter, am descrie "Eurasia", "ca o masca pentru poziii legitimare special
cu privire la strini
Politica "i" justificare moral "un convenabil mijlocul tranziii n politica intern
rus
i la nivel mondial Afaceri (p. 482). (n mitologia greac, Proteus a fost un zeu al
oceanului care ar putea
Mascheaz schimbarea de la dorinta de a preveni detectia. Mi-ar prooroceasc
sincer numai dac capturat.)
n cele din urm, articolul Smith ar putea fi Elaborarea asupra a ceea ce numit
"centrul vital" n limba rus
Viaa politic, crezul "etatismului Democrat" sau "oficial Eurasianism" Ceea ce
am asociat cu

2
administraiei Eln de la mijlocul anilor 1990. Dup cum am descris-o, etatitii
Democrat s combine
Angajamentul fa de un stat puternic, cu retorica de tip occidental
Democraie. Ei au "hold viziunea
Aceast din Rusia au venit pentru a reflecta un hibrid de bazndu-se pe o
combinaie de compromis
Liberalismul de Vest i neo-Nationalismul pentru a produce un discurs sincretic
geopolitic. "
Etatitii Democrat, am continuat, "a se vedea Rusia ca o civilizaie distincte,
diferite de
ITS West n valorile culturale i ngrijorri geopolitice i interesele de securitate
"(p. 487). Ei au vzut
Rusia ca o putere a Eurasiei cu propriile interese i preocupri unic naionale ar
trebui s-l aa
nu fi timid despre afirmarea putere ITS n "vecintatea apropiat". relaiile sale cu
Occidentul ar trebui s fie
condus de pragmatism i de realism, Neith necritic urma reflex Nord-Vest
Opune.
Aceast lucrare reviziteaz argumentele i munca de pionierat de Graham
Smith, n lumina
Modificri n Rusia i n geopolitica la nivel mondial n ultimii cinci ani. Dou
modificri, n special,
sunt frapante. Primul este preedinia lui Vladimir Putin Preedintele rus care a
devenit interimar
Dup demisia lui Boris Eln a preediniei n ziua de Anul Nou n anul 2000. A
continuat s Putin
ctiga alegerile n calitate de preedinte rus n martie 2000 i reales n martie
2004. Putin au
Dominat de centrul politic n Rusia, cu pricepere cracare n jos pe unele dintre
cele mai
ProMinent de oligarhi din ar n timp ce puterea de la Moscova i centralizarea
acumulate
controlul asupra mass-media (Shevtsova, 2003). n alegerile prezideniale din
martie 2004, Putin
A fost reales cu 71% din voturi din primul tur. Cum ai reuit s devin att de
Putin
dominant n viaa politic rus? Smith este o metafora apt Proteus mod de
nelegere
Recursul lui Putin, deoarece Putin este Proteus la mai multe Audiene istorice
geopolitice, purtnd un occidental
Liderii occidentali pentru a masca interne i Westernizers (zapadniki), dar
schimbarea la o "mare putere"
Masca pentru diferite circumscripii Rus interne. n contrast cu Smith, howeve,
am
Susin c discursul de Eurasianism nu este la fel de central n "centrul vital" de

politic rus
3
Viaa aa cum a aprut n 1999. Vom discuta i alte explicaii ale popularitii lui
Putin, dar principalul nostru
ngrijorare n aceast lucrare este de a intelege caracterul evolutiv al culturii
geopolitice ruse ca
tranziia ctre o BTS post-sovietic de identitate rus Introduce-al doilea deceniu.
A doua modificare este transformarea in geopolitica globala aduse de Bush
administraiei ca rspuns la atacurile teroriste asupra World Trade Centre i
Pentagonul la 11 septembrie 2001. Articularea Bush doctrin care a fcut ca n
lume
Termeni maniheist - "eti cu noi sau cu teroritii" - Statele Unite ale Americii de a
avea Urmrite
Politica unilateralist ferm agresive strine i ordinea de zi, rsturnarea guvernelor
dou state (Afganistan i Irak), la sud de Rusia Imediat, trimiterea de consilieri
pentru Combaterea
pe care le consider grupuri internaionale din ntreaga lume Teroritii (inclusiv n
fosta Uniune Sovietic
Republicii Georgia), precum i baze de ITS Stabilirea pentru Trupele din
Krgzstan i Uzbekistan,
In mod traditional parte a Rusiei de zona Asia-Central de influen. Anterioar la
11 septembrie, strine
Dmitri Trenin Analistii politicii externe cum ar fi unul dintre cei doi a lui Putin
Aceast politic ce se caracterizeaz prin WS
pragmatism i deriva, dar nu la alegere strategic (Trenin 2002a).In urma lui
septembrie lui Putin
24, 2001 discurs ctre naiune, n care am semnalat nu numai de Solidaritate al
Rusiei cu
Rzboiul american mpotriva terorismului internaional, dar consimmntul
militar american
nfiinarea n ex-sovietic baze, Trenin i combatant alii care au fcut n Rusia
"Alegere strategic", care urmeaz s fie parte din comunitatea occidental de
state Parchetului Rzboiul mpotriva
"Terorismul internaional" (Trenin 2002b). Administrarea Putin, desigur, au avut
motive, dar
aceast "alegere strategic", care urmeaz s fie parte a apelurilor "civilizaiei
occidentale" n argumentul ntrebarea lui Smith
despre puterea de Eurasianism ca un discurs separate civilizatoare n geopolitice
ruse
cultur (O'Loughlin, Toal i Kolossov 2004a). n timp ce relaiile americano-ruse,
deoarece au oscila
Apoi, ideea de "cale de construcii" (Kurs spetsial'niy) pentru Rusia s-au stins.
4
Aceste evoluii paralele au transpira ca literatura de specialitate privind
geopoliticii critice Sine
s-au extins i deepener. n aceast lucrare, ne revedem i s exploreze teme de

prima lui Smith

Unele dintre aceast literatur i revizuirea n curs de dezvoltare un aparat
conceptual de a studia limpezite
geopolitica. Apoi ne-am cuta pentru a examina empiric Relaia dintre geopolitice
ruse
Discursul i concepii de schimbare a identitii naionale de privirea de la
Atitudini populare Rus
n urma 9 / 11. Desen pe un sondaj naional de opinie public am realizat n
Rusia, n
Aprilie 2002, vom folosi rspunsuri la ntrebri despre locul Rusiei n lume i de
natura USRussian
Relaii dupa 9 / 11 Pentru a identifica grupurile de orientare in cultura geopolitice
ruse. Noi
Pe scurt schita un profil de ase grupri distincte aprut din rspunsurile pe care
la sondajul de opinie
ntrebri. Partea a trei caliti Elaborarea proteic lui Putin ca un politician i
discut unele
Factorii de contabilitate pentru popularitate istorice n funcie de principalele
evoluii electorale pe
Rus scena politic.
CRITICE geopolitic geopolitica CULTUR I RUS.
n ncercarea de a clarifica proliferare i a terminologiei asociate cu concurente
Uneori
studiu critic al geopoliticii, Tuathail (2004) Face Cauza pentru un set integrat
de
conceptualizri i nelegeri cu privire la dimensiunile geopoliticii diferite (a se
vedea figura
1). Central la conceptualizri complexe Teze sunt, pentru scopurile noastre n
aceast lucrare,
Noiuni urmtoarele patru:
Imaginatia geografica: imaginile predominante, conceptualizri i discursuri
Printre stat a populaiei de cazul n care statul este situat n Poziia i
lume, comunitate de state. Pentru a ceea ce "civilizaie" sau comunitate de state
nu de stat
aparin? Care este identitatea naional a statului i cum acest lucru se localiza
n cadrul
lumii?
5
Cultura geopolitic: Procese culturale i organizatorice prin care politica extern
se face n state. Acesta compris Concepiile de oameni politicii externe cresc din
acest
Imaginatia geografic, precum i codificrile mai mult de elita de modul n care
un stat trebuie s
conceptualizeze sine, STI nelegerea ntlnirea cu lumea politica extern i s
urmreasc
Obiectivele politicii externe special.

 Traditii geopolitic: gama de relativamente formaliza i coli concurente de

compris geopolitice crezut c "cultura nalt" a culturii unui stat geopolitic.
Fiecare traditie este un canon de gndire asupra identitii de stat, de interes
naional i normative
Prioritile de politic extern.
Visions geopolitic: un subset de Tradiii geopolitice, aceasta se refer la cadrul
normativ
pentru o agend de politic extern, ceea ce face de stat i cum ar trebui n
cazul n care naviga n sine
Lumea de provocri i crize geopolitice.
WS Smith articol 1999th geopolitice Preocupat cu practica atat de dominanta in
Rusia
WS "concept operaional pentru discursul geopolitice el, dei m-am referit la
geografica
imaginaie (cu referire la opinia public, dar nu intelectuali, p. 482). Dei am nici
o ndoial
neleas i semnificaia Apucai populare Concepiile geografice i publice
Discurs asupra opiniei geopolitice i practic, Smith nu a abordat n mod explicit
sau explorai acest
important de conectare. Mai degrab, am concentra pe articulatii cvasiformalizate i declaraii
din Rusia condiie geopolitice contemporane oferit de forele politice concurente
i
pri din ar. A subliniat Smith i trei coli principale discutate n cadrul nou pe
scar larg "
Eurasianism'-a) de la New Discursul Eurasianist Dreptul de "patrioi naionale" ca
Aleksandr
Dugin i Zavtra jurnal, b) Eurasia Discursul Comunist al Partidului Comunist din
Federaia Rus (CPRF) lider Gennadiy Zyuganov i c) ceea ce Smith codificate
ca
6
"Eurasianism Oficial" al etatitii democratice numrul de locuri ocupate de putere
care n formularul
Eln administrare.
Figura 1: a clarificat cadrul critic pentru Studiul de geopolitic (dup Tuathail
2004).
O'Loughlin (2001) abordat n mod explicit relaia dintre cultura popular
geopolitice la
codificrile de mai Politicieni elita geopolitice i intelectuali Printre Traditii. Lui
Aceast a fost concluzia ", a Fantasyland de geopolitic i de via stresant al
rusilor obisnuiti
sunt lumi n afar "(p.4). Desen pe o serie de sondaje de opinie public 1996 2000, I
C unul dintre cei doi "{p} avizul ublic n Rusia i pas puin despre afacerile
externe i geopolitica sau o
decalaj au aprut geopolitice majore ntre prioritile a elitelor i de zi cu zi

Preocupri ale rusilor obisnuiti "(p. 18). Avnd n vedere realitatea acestui
aparent deconectare, de ce este
C politica extern a administraiei Putin caracterizat prin Are fost n mod
constant de mare
7
Nivelurile de sprijin popular? Rspunsul este concluzia lui O'Loughlin Parial Asta
a fost oarecum
Argumentul lui este supraevaluat Deoarece mai exact c exist un decalaj ntre
geopolitice
fanteziile de "naional-patriotice" dreapta i comunitii - pentru simplicities binar
al Dugin, a
fanteziile militarist al lui Vladimir Jirinovski i Zyuganov de conspiraii grand - i
Preocupri ale rusilor obisnuiti.
Hrtie proprii O'Loughlin ca ilustrat, n cazul lui Putin este diferit.Ne propunem sa
Aceste EXEMPLIFIC diferencias tocmai prin generarea unei analize cluster a
opiniei publice ruse.
Aceste grupuri nu sunt clivajele politice i grupuri de vot; astfel de grupri, pe
baza de
Opiunile sunt uor de identificat publice sondajele de opinie electoral i din
datele de vot. Mai degrab
Raportate n aceast lucrare sunt grupuri Orientri populare geopolitice care leam fost n stare s
Elaborarea unei opinia public naional de la noi efectuate n ancheta din aprilie
2002. Pn n prezent, aa cum suntem
contient, acest lucru este primul grup empiric generat de orientri geopolitice
ruse. Aceste
Mai mult de imaginatia geografice sunt - dac rspunsurile de oameni Ei cred c
Rusia
Eurasianist sau este o stare de Vest, de exemplu - dei Aceste condiii specifice
i s contribuie
Orientri. Mai degrab, ele sunt cel mai bine descrie clusterelor ca orientare
geopolitic, un empiric
instantaneu de un moment istoric particular n fluxul de cultura populara
geopolitice ruse.
O'Loughlin lui (2001) punct-la-hrtie pe element cheie al acestei geopolitice
populare Rus
cultur, i anume c ruii obinuii Multe sunt decuplata de la dezbaterile de
politic extern i de
discuii. (Pentru mai multe detalii despre acest subiect, a se vedea Kolossov
2003a, 2003b). Ca i n Statele Unite ale Americii,
ignorana geopolitic este o parte importanta a culturii populare geopolitice. Nostru
de opinie public
teste de studiu pentru ignoranta geopolitice i ne-am dezvoltat dou scoruri
separate pentru acest
factor. S ne ntoarcem acum a lua n considerare n detaliu anchetei i
geopolitice ase Aceast Orientri

procedura de clusterizare v randament.

8
RUS Orientri geopolitice.
Ca parte a unui proiect mai amplu care se concentreaz asupra atitudinilor
ruseti rzboiul SUA-condus de terorism n
Urma atacurilor de la 11 septembrie 2001, am conduit studiu naional n luna
aprilie
2002. Eantionul de 1800 obscen Organizat de ctre era de 202 puncte de
prelevare n 64 dintre cele 89 de subieci
(Statele) din Federaia Rus. Prelevarea de probe i au fost efectuate de ctre
Surveying FOM
(Fond Obshchestvennoe Mnenie - Fundatia pentru Opiniei Publice), o secie
naional ProMinent
firm. n cadrul fiecrui punct de prelevare, selectate de ctre respondenii au
fost folosind strad prelevare aleatorie de probe
adrese pentru interviuri la domiciliu. Prin similitudine de rspunsuri la ntrebri
Same
ntrebat de ctre alte firme de votare naionale (cum ar fi "do you sprijin extern
preedintelui Putin
Politica ")? i se amestec socio-demografic n eantion care reflect totalurile
naionale, suntem
ncreztor c Reprezint rspunsurile rus opiniei publice cu precizie. Am
intenionat
n mod tradiional oversampled n zonele de pe Volga i musulmane din
Caucazul de Nord pentru a compara
Rspunsuri musulmani i rus. Studiul de 54 de ntrebri, n medie, Am luat 25
minute la
Au fost complete i 10.700 persoane de contact ncercat s realizeze obiectivul
de 1800 aduli reprezentative.
Studiul a inclus intrebari pe 5 teme principale - locul Rusiei n lume, relaiile Entre
Rusia i Statele Unite, rzboiul conduse de SUA mpotriva terorismului, geografia
politic a Rusiei interne
regiuni, i Atitudini fata de anumite regiuni ale lumii i de cluburi de ar -, precum
i socio-demografice de obicei
i de localizare (edere) ntrebri. Studiul ofer o imagine de ASTFEL ruse
Orientri n contextul geopolitic al rzboiului din Afganistan, sprijinul lui Putin
de administrare pentru rzboiul american mpotriva terorismului i retorica a
preediniei Bush Care
a creat "ax a rului" (Irak, Iran i Coreea de Nord), fraza n statul al Uniunii de la
sfritul
din ianuarie 2002.
Cu peste 40 de rspunsuri la ntrebri de atitudine, mai ales pe scale ordinale 5
puncte, am
Fiecare a optat s cntreasc n mod egal i pentru a cluster rspunsurile
folosind o grupare ierarhic
9

procedur. Aceast procedur utilizeaz un algoritm care ncepe cu un grup

separat de fiecare caz i n
Pn la grupuri combina doar unul este la stnga. Distana de similitudine sau
sunt generate la fiecare Msuri
etap pentru a ajuta selecta cea mai bun soluie. n studiul nostru, sase grupuri
ofer o soluie elegant
ntre complexitatea multe grupri i supra-simplitatea alegerea mai puine i este
susinut de creterea mari n termen de eroare (distanta euclidiana squared),
comparativ cu 5
soluii. Dei numai clusterele generate de scorurile au fost cu privire la ntrebrile
atitudinale,
discuie de clustere se bazeaz pe amestec de Atitudini n fiecare grup, precum
i socio-demografice
Fiecare personaj de membru n grup. Valorile de sub-i supra
Procentul mediu de rspuns Than mai mare de 7% sunt prezentate n tabelul
1. Noi
Aceste grupuri apel geopolitice si nu ne asumam orientri c acestea sunt fluide
i oarecum
variabil. Noi credem c acestea sunt Reuniuni temporar geopolitice ale culturii
populare, dei
desigur, numai n momente diferite repetate topografie Asta ar putea confirma
credinta.
Tabelul 1 despre aici
Examinarea supra-i sub-reprezentare a atitudini diferite i a grupurilor n
Ajut la clarificarea tabel, ase orientri geopolitice. Cluster 1 este Identificat ca
Putin
adepi, Sprijinirea preedintelui politicii externe i de pro-SUA n general i
orientate spre
West. Stabilirea se la 413 de persoane i 22,9% din eantion, este cea mai mare
grupare. Acest grup
Consider c statele slave (Ucraina i Belarus) sunt cele mai importante pentru
Rusia i s accepte
orientarea geopolitic gsite pe controlate de stat de televiziune rus. Ca
majoritatea rui,
Dar Putin Ei susin conduse de SUA mpotrivitor rzboi mpotriva terorismului i
Atacurile la adresa S. U. c statele
Sprijinirea acuza de terorism. Acestea sunt bine informai n general i strine
interesat i de
Afaceri i cred c, la fel ca alte trei grupe, c Rusia este un stat european.
n contrast puternic, Cluster 2 reflect n Eurasianist rus orientarea geopolitic
cultur. Creznd c Rusia nu mai este o mare putere, membrii de acest grup cu
fermitate
10
mpotrivitor rzboiul american mpotriva terorismului i Rusia nu sunt de acord
Acesta este un stat european De asemenea, n timp ce
Opunndu-se politicii lui Putin i a partidului (Edinaia Rossiya).Respondenii sunt

mai mari dect media i

susintori n mod disproporionat Comunist din partid; Ele sunt vizate de
ameninarea
terorismului internaional, ambiiile geopolitice ale SUA Threat, i creterea
perceput n
numrul de musulmani din Rusia. Ele se constituie 275 de persoane sau 15,3%
din eantion. Pentru ei
relaiilor internaionale este o aren de competiie i lupt ntre Atlanticism i de
Vest
Liberalismul pragmatice, pe de o parte, i socialismul i rus (post-sovietic)
spiritualitate, pe
de alt parte.
Cluster 3 este eliminat i de instituire a unei considerabile apolitic, aduli tineri,
occidentalizare bloc.
Ei par sa se adune lng poziia de centru cu privire la chestiuni-cheie, dar muli
sunt realiste despre
Relativ a Rusiei n picioare mondiale care, de cele mai multe studii, au o
scadere brusca Afiat peste
ultimul deceniu. Grupul de parts unele poziii cu Att primul (patrimoniul
european de
Importana Rusia i Ucraina i Belarus), dar difer n STI privind ameninarea
reprezentat de concernul
terorismului internaional i de cretere a populaiei musulmane din Rusia, se
teme c Acesta sh ari
cu al doilea grup. Din cele 329 de persoane (18% din eantion), exist o
reprezentare supraindividuos de tineri, singur, n special femeile.
Cluster patrulea este disproporionat de tineri, Respondenii de sex masculin, de
lucru clasa Cine
sunt pro-SUA si pro-Putin Puin. Ele se constituie 12,3% sau 221 Respondenii
de prob.
Ele sunt foarte puternice distinct lor pentru susinerea rzboiului mpotriva
terorismului SUA (63% mai mult dect
Sprijinirea atacul, n medie, de ctre rile Acuzat de sprijinirea terorismului SUA)
i pentru
sprijinul financiar al Alianei SUA-Rusia mpotriva Terorismului. Ei continu s
cread c Rusia este un puternic
C puterea i legturile tradiionale slave culturale sunt importante pentru Rusia
nr mai mult. Ca i n Mostar
Stat democratic, este aciuni de sprijin tinerilor militare Cine rele i de vrst
mijlocie i mai mari
Femeile care sunt cele mai n opoziie n Rusia.
11
Doilea grup ca mrime (360 respondeni i 20% din eantion) este clusterul 5,
Acest grup de reduceri de occidentalizare ferm Belarus, Ucraina, Asia Central i
Transcaucazia ca

Dar, important, n acelai timp, locuri de ferm Rusia n Europa.Spre deosebire de

fosta Uniune Sovietic
state, Europa de Vest i SUA sunt identificate ca statul cel mai important pentru
Rusia. Acest
Cele mai arat n mod clar grupul zapadniki (westernizers) Dar orientarea lor
socio-demografice
Caracteristicile sunt apropiate de mediile eantionului. Dei ferm pro-Vest, acest
grup nu
nu suport rzboiul american mpotriva terorismului.
Ultimul grup (cluster 6) este cea mai mic Respondenii cu 202, 11,2% din
eantionul nostru.
Nivelul lor de ignoran este foarte mare geopolitice (74,7% mai mult dect
media), msurat prin
incapacitatea de a identifica orice regiune a lumii i pentru Rusia, ca i
declaraiile de important c au
puin interes n politica extern. Dei n mod constant Opposing Rzboi U. S. pe
terorismului, Ei sunt
Preocupat de terorism i sunt singurul grup care s accepte fr echivoc ecuaia
Putin a
9-11 Atacurile cu atentatele cu bomb a cldirilor de locuit din Rusia, n toamna a
oraelor din
1999. Ei vor s recreeze relaii apropiate de fostele republici sovietice, slave i
Att
Musulmani. Respondenii din acest grup sunt n mod disproporionat n vrst,
pensionari, poorlyeducated,
de sex feminin i locuitorii din mediul rural.
Bazat pe gruparea de identificri similare din geopolitice Into respondenilor
Orientari, ne ntoarcem acum la dou ntrebri legate. n primul rnd, vom
examina popularitatea lui Putin
Avnd n vedere contextul acestor orientri geopolitice politice. n mod evident
popularitatea lui Putin, la nceputul anului
2004 este un rezultat de o multitudine de factori, atat personale cat si
structural. Examinarea noastre istorice
recurs nu este att de mult condus de elemente personalului politic s se
concentreze asupra Dar structurale
Caracteristici ale sistemului politic rus n care chestiunile de identitii naionale,
al Rusiei
loc n Sistemul de politic mondial, i caracterul evolutiv al geopolitice ruse
Imaginatia ProMinent joac un rol. n al doilea rnd, vom examina relaia dintre
Aceste geopolitice
12
Orientri pentru contemporan rus geopolitice care caracterizeaz Traditii mare
geopolitice
cultur. Revenind la natura critica geopolitic, astfel cum rezumate n Figura 1,
vom folosi
Exemplu pentru a demonstra cum Rus Orientri dovezile empirice indic faptul

grupuri noastre sunt legate

de lung durat Traditii si obiceiuri care au fost subiectul unei dezbateri profunde
n sectorul public i rus
sferele intelectuale (Smith, 1999b; Ingram, 2001).
Putin MTI.
Contrar argumentului lui Smith n 1999 Lui articol, susinem c nu este rus
geopolitic
Traditii si obiceiuri, cum ar fi Eurasianism, care s-au mti proteice. Mai degrab,
n Rusia contemporan, este
Cine uzur factorii de decizie politic sunt activate c mtile diferite n arena
politic. n primul rnd
Printre Preedintele Putin este individuos Aceste ale cror politici i manevrele
politice, n ascuite
Spre deosebire de predecesorul istorice, Boris Eln, au fost remarcabil de
succes. Lui Putin proteic
Calitati au fost observate de ctre comentatori politici. n analiza Shevtsova, de
exemplu, am
Dac recursul unei "Everyman" i "a fost apologetic pentru a ajunge in spatele
neptruns masca Putin
Purtau mereu "(Shevtsova 2003, 214).
Bazndu-se pe analiza a Shevtsova i altele, ne susin c exist trei mari
Factorii care considerare popularitatea lui Putin pentru Alturi de nalt macroeconomice de cretere bazat pe
C exporturile de materii prime n timp ce Rusia le-am experimentat a fost
preedinte. Primul este acela de a
caracteristic central a vieii politice ruse, i anume tradiia statului autoritar ITS
de stat.
Rusia au mult timp caracterizat printr-o puternic Been regul centralizarea de
stat i paternaliste printr-o
dominante lider. Trebuie s sape un liderii rui, cu o mn puternic Guvernul, de
stabilire a
Preedinii de lege pentru alii, n timp ce deasupra ei nii.Puterea este
personalizat n figura de
lider. n analiza lui Shevtsova, perioada post-comunist continu cu aceast
convenie
Funcionarea mai mult ca Eln un "monarh ales" dect un lider democrat (p.
59). Lui Putin
13
au continuat aceast tradiie n timp ce preedinia profitnd de o dorin
general societale
de conducere stabilitate, predictibilitate i puternic n urma haotice i de
sntate, afectate
ultimii ani ai preediniei lui Eln.
Putin au pricepere, re-acumulate de asemenea, puterea pierdut de stat n
timpul domniei lui Eln.
Putin au reined n puterea de sefii regionale pe ntreg teritoriul Rusiei,

Neutralizarea unele,
Compromiterea cu alii, i de tiere oferte n moduri care au ntrit ceea ce Rus
Comentatorii termenul de "verticalitatea de putere." Antipatic Eln, Putin au o
mult mai puin s demonstreze
toleran de o mass-media independente i s-i afirme controlul wiggle hotrt
n cele dou
de stat posturilor de televiziune i s aduc o treime, independent i critic NTV
Odat, n temeiul
Influena i controlul de stat indirect prin intermediul Gazprom.Acest lucru a
permis Kremlinului de a avea produse i
gestiona imaginea prezideniale din televiziune noapte de noapte, astfel rui
pozitive dezvolte i s menin
imagini de regul istorice. Marea majoritate a ruilor au ncredere n tirile de la
Kremlin, dominat de aceste
reelelor (Petrova, 2004)
O tradiie de regul i paternaliste "acordul de fabricaie" de ctre controlul de
stat asupra
de televiziune nu sunt garani de popularitate ca regimul comunist i soarta lui
Eln Demonstrai.
Conturile treilea factor pentru ca popularitatea lui Putin este ceea ce ruii
termenul de "politic
tehnologii ". Pionier n Occident i Rusia, adus la de ctre consultani politice
care
A lucrat pe Eln re-campaniei electorale din 1996, aceasta este arta de
guvernare prin
Combinat cu politica simbolic observare atenta i urmrire a sondajelor de
opinie.
Imaginea iniial lui Putin de lipsa de claritate a permis Diferitele grupuri de
proiect la valorile lor i
Orientri asupra lui. Lui prima campanie prezidenial pentru STI a fost lipsa rnd
rkable de specificul.
Campania de-al doilea timpul la nceputul anului 2004, am acionat n mod
similar. Doar dup februarie Lui
discurs n Universitatea de Stat din Moscova, unde am par a fi liberal (McGregor,
2004), am mers la
Marea Barents, n cazul n care, am observat purtarea Manevrele marina
uniform a
14
Comandantul-ef i a anunat de Dezvoltare Strategic a unei arme noi, astfel
rolul de semnalizare a potenialului militar al Rusiei n echilibrarea lume structura
vizelor geopolitice
vis de Statele Unite ale Americii.
n Lui Primii ani prezidenial, Putin a spa un curs de mijloc pentru a pilota ntre
antiPoveti de vest a comunitilor i patrioi naionale, pe de o parte, i proWestern reformatori liberale i scenarii de cosmopolii pe de alt parte. n timp ce

lui Putin 24
WS septembrie 2001 a reprezentat discursul "alegere strategic", ca istoric al
siding cu Occidentul n
rzboiul mpotriva terorismului prin Comentatorii (a se vedea O'Loughlin,
Tuathail i Kolossov, 2004a),
Orientri geopolitice gsite n sondajul nostru arat capacitatea sa de a agresiv
Acest sprijin
Rzboiul American-a condus "mpotriva terorismului internaional" politice au
limite. Lui Putin pentru avizare
mpotriva atacului american n Afganistan sub regimul taliban nu a fost urmat de
ctre public
sprijin pentru rzboiul mpotriva Irakului lui Saddam Hussein.Studiul nostru a
constatat publice Copleitor
Aceast opoziie la rzboi (69,2% si cu siguranta disapporove anse) Extinderea
la rzboi i la
alti doi membri ai lui George Bush "ax a rului", Coreea de Nord i Iran (10,5%
i 14,5%
respectiv). n timp ce mpotrivitor Aceste grupuri ar putea s-l (dou i ase,
26,5% din totalul eantionului)
Au fost relativ clar, congealing celor patru alte grupuri n sprijinul public susinute
pentru
Politicii sale de politic extern strin care necesit distanta de la beligeran de
Bush
administrare.
Aceasta este exact traiectoria politic extern au condus Putin a urmat studiului
nostru,
schimbtoare mti pe probleme de politic extern Diverse, la o dat prooccidental nc de asemenea, o "rus Mare"
Sprijinirea o strategie de geo-economic capitalist i n timp ce de asemenea,
reforme de reinere Liberalizarea la
ngrijorare cu Dezvoltare geopolitice n Asia Central i Caucaz.(Marcu Putin
prima aniversare de la 11 septembrie 2001 de ctre Ameninarea cu preemptive
ceceni Rzboiul mpotriva
"Teroritii" n Georgia). Fac apel pentru niveluri mai mari de investiii strine
directe, coasta de asemenea nc
15
la puterea de interne complexului militar-industrial, am abonat la liberale
occidentale
valori i a "statului de drept", dar de asemenea, lui hard-line a continuat rzboiul
din Cecenia, i am pozat
un aliat american n rzboiul mpotriva terorismului, n timp ce condamna U. S.
Politici n Orientul Mijlociu
(Irak i Palestina / Israel) (Kryshtanovskaya 2002).
Geopolitice Orientri geopolitice i tradiiilor ruseti
Cum geopolitice populare identificate n orientrile sondajul nostru se refer la
mai mult

Tradiiile culturii ruse geopolitice formalizat? Exist conexiuni n timp ce, nu

exist
corelaie direct. Geopolitic rus au fost mult timp o cultur de mare de elite
concurente pentru afacerea
domine un stat autocratic, cu o cultur slab a geopoliticii populare Aceast puin
Primit
Atentie Pn de curnd. Este acum devine aparent faptul ca unele Rus
ndelungat
Traditii si obiceiuri cum ar fi Eurasianism Solicitai geopolitice sprijin popular
foarte limitat. Tabelul 1 arat c
Printre Eurasianist orientarea geopolitic rus se limiteaz la populaie pentru
ntreprinderile mici
Comunist sub-cluster. De asemenea, nu exist nici circumscripia Aparent
popular pentru extremiste
Alexandr Dugin viziuni de Heartland (pentru geopolitica Dugin, a se vedea 1997
i Ingram Dugin
2001).
Bazndu-se pe Clasificri de Smith i alii, incluznd evenimentele din ultimele
de cinci ani i bazndu-se pe rezultatele sondajului nostru i alte cercetri
recente asupra opiniei publice, am

RUSSIAN GEOPOLITICAL CULTURE IN THE POST-9/11

ERA:
THE MASKS OF PROTEUS REVISITED*
John OLoughlin
Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado at Boulder
Email: johno@colorado.edu
Gearid Tuathail (Gerard Toal)
Government and International Affairs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University,
Alexandria Centre, Virginia
Email: toalg@vt.edu
Vladimir Kolossov
Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
email: vladk@online.ru
* This research is supported by a grant, number 0203087, from the U.S.
National Science
Foundation, Geography and Regional Science Program. The authors thank
Dr. Elena
Petrenko of the Foundation of Public Opinion (FOM) in Moscow who worked
closely in
developing the questionnaire for the national survey and who supervised
its successful and
timely completion.
1

ABSTRACT
In this paper, we build on the work of Graham Smith who was developing
a critical geopolitics
of Russia in his posthumous paper of 1999 published in this journal. Like
Smith, we link the
evolving geopolitical orientations of Russia to the search for a post-Soviet
identity for the new
state and its political leadership. While Smith saw the nature of Russian
geopolitics to have
Protean masks, our argument is that it is the leadership of the Russian
state, specifically
President Putin, who has successfully adopted a Protean strategy to
appeal to the disparate
elements of the Russian geopolitical spectrum. Based on a nationwide
survey in Spring 2002,
we identify six clusters in Russian public opinion by socio-demographic
characteristics and we
relate each cluster to the main geopolitical orientations competing in
contemporary Russia as
reflected in the results of the 2003 Duma and 2004 Presidential elections
in Russia.
Key words: Russia, critical geopolitics, public opinion, geopolitical
orientations, Vladimir Putin,
elections
1
In the last article before his untimely death, published in this journal in
1999, Graham Smith
pioneered the development of a critical geopolitics perspective on Russian
geopolitical thinking.
Smiths article made three important arguments. First, he connected the
shifting reformulations
found in Russian foreign policy in the 1990s to a more systematic crisis of
national identity in
Russia (Smith 1999a, 481). Smith understood that geopolitics was more
than elite foreign policy
discourse; it was also about the identity of Russia and its place in the
world after the collapse of
the Soviet homeland and the loss of great power status. It involved
politics and public opinion.
His reasoning parallels other works that connect geopolitics to national
identity (e.g. Dijkink,
1996; Neumann, 1999). National identity is shaped by political elites and
it does not exist
separate from political discourse and political struggle and, therefore,
cannnot be static or
eternal (Zevelev, 2002).
Secondly, Smiths 1999 article outlined the emergence of a new
Eurasianism in Russia

which he described as a shifting and ambiguous doctrine with advocates

across the political
spectrum. Eurasianism is the assertion of a distinct civilizational space for
Russia separate from
the West and from Asia. Smith argued that, after an initial Westernliberal period in the early
1990s where the discourse of Russia rejoining Western civilization was
paramount, Russian
foreign policy discourse tilted towards a vague yet politically vital
Eurasianism. Eurasia is a
useful abstraction whose malleability is its central characteristic. Evoking
Proteus, a mythic
shape-shifter, he described Eurasia as a mask for legitimating particular
stances on foreign
policy and a convenient moral justification amidst transitions in Russian
domestic politics
and global affairs (p. 482). (In Greek mythology, Proteus was a god of the
ocean who could
change disguises at will to prevent detection. He would only prophesy
truthfully if captured.)
Finally, Smiths article elaborated upon what could be termed the vital
centre in Russian
political life, the creed of democratic statism or official Eurasianism
which he associated with
2
the Yeltsin administration from the mid-1990s. As he described it,
democratic statists combine a
commitment to a strong state with the rhetoric of Western-style
democracy. They hold a vision
of Russia that has come to reflect a hybrid of compromise drawing upon a
combination of
Western liberalism and neo-nationalism to produce a syncretic geopolitical
discourse.
Democratic statists, he continued, see Russia as a distinctive civilization,
different from the
West in its cultural values and geopolitical security concerns and
interests (p. 487). They saw
Russia as an Eurasian power with its own unique national interests and
concerns so it should
not be shy about asserting its power in the near abroad. Its dealings with
the West should be
driven by pragmatism and realism, neither uncritically following the West
nor reflexively
opposing it.
This paper revisits the arguments and pioneering work of Graham Smith in
the light of
changes in Russia and in global geopolitics over the last five years. Two
changes in particular

are salient. The first is the presidency of Vladimir Putin who became
interim Russian President
after Boris Yeltsins resignation of the presidency on New Years Day in
2000. Putin went on to
win election as Russian president in March 2000 and re-election in March
2004. Putin has
dominated the political centre in Russia, skillfully cracking down on some
of the most
prominent of the countrys oligarchs while centralizing power in Moscow
and accumulated
control over the mass media (Shevtsova, 2003). In the presidential
election of March 2004, Putin
was re-elected with 71% of the first-round vote. How has Putin managed
to become so
dominant in Russian political life? Smiths Proteus metaphor is an apt way
of understanding
Putins appeal since Putin is Proteus to his multiple geopolitical audiences,
wearing a Western
mask to Western leaders and domestic Westernizers (zapadniki) but
changing to a great power
Russian mask for different domestic constituencies. In contradistinction to
Smith, however, we
argue that the discourse of Eurasianism is not as central to the vital
centre of Russian political
3
life as it appeared in 1999. We discuss other explanations of Putins
popularity but our main
concern in this paper is to understand the evolving nature of Russian
geopolitical culture as the
transition to a post-Soviet Russian identity enters its second decade.
The second change is the transformation in global geopolitics brought on
by the Bush
administrations response to the terrorist attacks against the World Trade
Centre and the
Pentagon on 11 September 2001. Articulating a Bush Doctrine that
rendered the world in
Manichean terms youre with us or with the terrorists the United
States has pursued a
strongly unilateralist and aggressive foreign policy agenda, overthrowing
the governments of
two states (Afghanistan and Iraq) to the immediate south of Russia,
sending advisors to fight
groups it considers international terrorists across the world (including in
the former Soviet
Republic of Georgia), and establishing bases for its troops in Kyrgyzstan
and Uzbekistan,
traditionally part of Russias Central Asian zone of influence. Previous to
September 11, foreign

policy analysts like Dmitri Trenin argued that Putins foreign policy was
characterized by
pragmatism and drift but not a strategic choice (Trenin 2002a). In the
wake of Putins September
24, 2001 speech to the nation in which he signaled not only Russian
solidarity with the
American war against international terrorism but acquiescence of the
American military
establishment in former Soviet bases, Trenin and others argued that
Russia had made a
strategic choice to be part of the Western community of states
prosecuting a war against
international terrorism (Trenin 2002b). The Putin administration, of
course, had its motives but
this strategic choice to be part of Western civilization calls into question
Smiths argument
about the power of Eurasianism as a separate civilizational discourse in
Russian geopolitical
culture (O'Loughlin, Toal and Kolossov 2004a). While US-Russian relations
have oscillated since
then, the idea of a special path (spetsialniy kurs) for Russia has faded.
4
These parallel developments have transpired as the literature on critical
geopolitics itself
has expanded and deepened. In this paper, we revisit and explore Smiths
themes by first
reviewing some of this literature and developing a clarified conceptual
apparatus to study
geopolitics. We then seek empirically to examine the relationship between
Russian geopolitical
discourse and changing conceptions of national identity by looking at
popular Russian attitudes
in the wake of 9/11. Drawing upon a national public opinion survey we
conducted in Russia in
April 2002, we use answers to questions about Russias place in the world
and the nature of USRussian
relations after 9/11 to identify orientation clusters in Russian geopolitical
culture. We
briefly sketch a profile of six distinct clusters that emerged from the
answers to the survey
questions. Part three elaborates Putins protean qualities as a politician
and discusses some
factors accounting for his popularity in the light of the main electoral
developments on the
Russian political scene.
CRITICAL GEOPOLITICS AND RUSSIAN GEOPOLITICAL CULTURE.
In a bid to clarify the proliferating and sometimes competing terminology
associated with the

critical study of geopolitics, Tuathail (2004) makes the case for an

integrated set of
conceptualizations and understandings about the various dimensions of
geopolitics (see Figure
1). Central to these complex conceptualizations are, for our purposes in
this paper, the
following four notions:
Geographical Imaginations: the prevalent images, conceptualizations
and discourses
amongst a states population of where that state is positioned and located
within the
worlds community of states. To what civilization or community of states
does the state
belong? What is the national identity of the state and how does this locate
it within the
world?
5
Geopolitical Culture: the cultural and organizational processes by which
foreign policy
is made in states. It comprises popular conceptions of foreign policy that
grow out of
geographical imaginations as well as more elite codifications of how a
state should
conceptualize itself, understand its foreign policy encounter with the world
and pursue
particular foreign policy objectives.
Geopolitical Traditions: the range of relatively formalized and competing
schools of
geopolitical thought that comprise the high culture of a states
geopolitical culture.
Each tradition is a canon of thought on state identity, the national interest
and normative
foreign policy priorities.
Geopolitical Visions: a subset of geopolitical traditions, this refers to the
normative
agenda for a foreign policy, what the state should do and how it should
navigate itself in
a world of geopolitical challenges and crises.
Smiths 1999a article was concerned with geopolitical practice in Russia
so the dominant
operational concept for him was geopolitical discourse, though he referred
to geographical
imagination (with reference to intellectuals but not public opinion, p. 482).
While he no doubt
understood and grasped the significance of popular geographical
conceptions and public

opinion on geopolitical discourse and practice, Smith did not explicitly

address or explore this
important connection. Rather, he concentrated on quasi-formalized
articulations and statements
of Russias contemporary geopolitical condition offered by competing
political forces and
parties in the country. Smith outlined and discussed three main schools
within the broad new
Eurasianism- a) the Eurasianist New Right discourse of national patriots
like Aleksandr
Dugin and the journal Zavtra, b) the Eurasian Communist discourse of the
Communist Party of
the Russian Federation (CPRF) leader Gennadii Zyuganov and c) what
Smith codifies as the
6
official Eurasianism of the democratic statists that occupied seats of
power in the former
Yeltsin administration.
Figure 1: Clarified Framework for the Critical Study of Geopolitics (after
Tuathail 2004).
OLoughlin (2001) explicitly addressed the relationship of popular
geopolitical culture to the
more elite codifications of geopolitical traditions amongst politicians and
intellectuals. His
conclusion was that the fantasyland of geopolitics and the stressful life of
ordinary Russians
are worlds apart (p.4). Drawing upon a range of public opinion polls from
1996 to 2000, he
argued that {p}ublic opinion in Russia cares little about geopolitics or
foreign affairs and a
major gap has emerged between the geopolitical priorities of the elites
and the day-to-day
concerns of ordinary Russians (p. 18). Given the apparent reality of this
disconnect, why is it
that the foreign policy of the Putin administration has been characterized
by consistently high
7
levels of popular support? The answer is partly that OLoughlins
conclusion was somewhat
overstated because his argument is more precisely that there is a gap
between the geopolitical
fantasies of the national-patriotic right and Communists the binary
simplicities of Dugin, the
militarist fantasies of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and the grand conspiracies of
Zyuganov -- and the
concerns of ordinary Russians.
As OLoughlins own paper illustrates, the case of Putin is different. We
propose to

illustrate precisely these differences by generating a cluster analysis of

Russian public opinion.
These clusters are not political cleavages and voting groups; such
groupings on the bases of
electoral choices are readily identifiable from public opinion polls and
voting data. Rather the
clusters reported in this paper are popular geopolitical orientations that
we have been able to
develop from a national public opinion survey we conducted in April of
2002. So far as we are
aware, this is the first empirically generated cluster of Russian geopolitical
orientations. These
are more than geographical imaginations the responses of people
whether they believe Russia
is a Western or Eurasianist state, for example though these contribute
and condition particular
orientations. Rather, they are best described as geopolitical orientation
clusters, an empirical
snapshot of a particular historical moment in the flux of popular Russian
geopolitical culture.
OLoughlins (2001) paper pointed to a key feature of this popular Russian
geopolitical
culture, namely that many ordinary Russians are disengaged from foreign
policy debates and
discussions. (For more on this subject, see Kolossov 2003a, 2003b). As in
the United States,
geopolitical ignorance is an important part of popular geopolitical culture.
Our public opinion
survey tests for geopolitical ignorance and we have developed two
separate scores for this
factor. Let us now turn to consider the survey in detail and the six
geopolitical orientations that
the clustering procedure has yielded.
8
RUSSIAN GEOPOLITICAL ORIENTATIONS.
As part of a larger project that focused on Russian attitudes to the US-led
war on terrorism in
the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, we conducted a
national survey in April
2002. The 1800 adult sample was organized by 202 sampling points
across 64 of the 89 subjects
(states) of the Russian Federation. The sampling and the surveying were
conducted by FOM
(Fond Obshchestvennoe Mnenie Foundation for Public Opinion), a
prominent national polling
firm. Within each sampling point, respondents were selected by random
sampling using street

addresses for the doorstep interviews. Through similarity of answers to

the same questions
asked by other national polling firms (such as do you support President
Putins foreign
policy?) and a socio-demographic mix in the sample that reflects national
totals, we are
confident that the answers represent Russian public opinion accurately.
We deliberately
oversampled in traditionally Muslim areas of the Volga and the North
Caucasus to compare
Muslim and Russian responses. The survey of 54 questions took on
average 25 minutes to
complete and 10,700 contacts were attempted to achieve the target of
1800 representative adults.
The survey included questions on 5 main topics Russias place in the
world, relations between
Russia and the US, the US-led war on terrorism, the internal political
geography of Russian
regions, and attitudes towards specific countries and world regions - as
well as the usual sociodemographic
and locational (residence) questions. The survey thus offers a snapshot of
Russian
geopolitical orientations in the context of the war in Afghanistan, the
support of the Putin
administration for the US war on terrorism and the rhetoric of the Bush
presidency which
coined the axis of evil (Iraq, Iran and North Korea) phrase in the State of
the Union at the end
of January 2002.
With responses to over 40 attitudinal questions, mostly on 5 point ordinal
scales, we
opted to weigh each equally and to cluster the responses using a
hierarchical clustering
9
procedure. This procedure uses an algorithm that starts with each case as
a separate group and
combines groups until only one is left. Distance or similarity measures are
generated at each
stage to help select the best solution. In our study, six clusters provides
an elegant solution
between the complexity of many clusters and the over-simplicity of fewer
and the choice is
supported by the large increase in the error term (squared Euclidean
distance) compared to 5
solutions. Though the clusters were generated only by scores on the
attitudinal questions,
discussion of the clusters is based on the mix of attitudes in each cluster
as well as the sociodemographic

character of membership in each cluster. Values of under- and

overrepresentation
than the average percentage response greater than 7% are shown in
Table 1. We
call these clusters geopolitical orientations and we assume that they are
fluid and somewhat
variable. We believe that they are temporary gatherings of popular
geopolitical culture, though
of course, only repeated surveying at different times could confirm that
belief.
Table 1 about here
Examination of the over-and under-representation of different attitudes
and groups in
the table helps to clarify the six geopolitical orientations. Cluster 1 is
identified as Putin
followers, supporting the Presidents foreign policy and generally pro-US
and oriented to the
West. It constitutes 413 people and at 22.9% of the sample, is the biggest
grouping. This group
believes that the Slavic states (Ukraine and Belarus) are most important
for Russia and accept
the geopolitical orientation found on state controlled Russian television.
Like most Russians,
they support Putin but oppose the US-led war on terrorism and attacks on
states that the US
accuses of supporting terrorism. They are generally well-informed and
interested in foreign
affairs and believe, like three other clusters, that Russia is a European
state.
In sharp contrast, Cluster 2 reflects the Eurasianist orientation in Russian
geopolitical
culture. Believing that Russia is no longer a great power, members of this
cluster strongly
10
oppose the US war on terrorism and disagree that Russia is a European
state whilst also
opposing Putins policy and party (Edinaya Rossiya). Respondents are
older than average and
disproportionately supporters of the Communist party; they are concerned
by the threat of
international terrorism, the threat of US geopolitical ambitions, and the
perceived increase in
the number of Muslims in Russia. They constitute 275 people or 15.3% of
the sample. For them,
international relations is an arena of struggle and competition between
Atlanticism and Western
pragmatic liberalism, on the one hand, and socialism and Russian (postSoviet) spirituality, on

the other hand.

Cluster 3 is quite sizeable and constitutes an apolitical, young adult,
Westernizing block.
They seem to congregate near the centrist position on many key
questions but are realistic about
Russias relative global standing which, by most surveys, has shown a
sharp decline over the
past decade. The group shares some positions with both the first (the
European heritage of
Russia and the importance of Ukraine and Belarus) but differs in its
concern on the threat of
international terrorism and the growth of the Muslim population in Russia,
fears that it sh ares
with the second cluster. Of the 329 people (18% of the sample), there is
an over-representation
of young, single individuals, especially women.
The fourth cluster is disproportionately young, male, working class
respondents who
are pro-US and slightly pro-Putin. They constitute 221 respondents or
12.3% of the sample.
They are very distinctive for their strong support of the US war on
terrorism (63% more than
the average supporting attack on countries accused by the US of
supporting terrorism) and for
support of the US-Russian alliance against terrorism. They believe that
Russia is still a strong
power and that traditional Slavic cultural ties are no longer important to
Russia. As in most
democratic states, it is young males who support military action and older
and middle-aged
women who are most in opposition in Russia.
11
The second largest group (360 respondents and 20% of the sample) is
cluster 5, a
Westernizing group that strongly discounts Belarus, Ukraine, Central Asia
and Transcaucasia as
important but, at the same time, firmly places Russia in Europe. By
contrast to the former Soviet
states, Western Europe and the US are identified as the most important
states for Russia. This
group most clearly shows the zapadniki (westernizers) orientation but
their socio-demographic
characteristics are close to the samples averages. Though strongly proWest, this group does
not support the US war on terrorism.
The final group (cluster 6) is the smallest with 202 respondents, 11.2% of
our sample.

Their level of geopolitical ignorance is very high (74.7% more than the
average), measured by
an inability to identify any world region as important for Russia and
declarations that they have
little interest in foreign policy. Whilst consistently opposing the US war on
terrorism, they are
concerned about terrorism and are the only group to accept unequivocally
the Putin equation of
the 9-11 attacks with the bombings of apartment buildings in Russian
cities in the autumn of
1999. They want to recreate the close relations of the former Soviet
republics, both Slavic and
Muslim. Respondents in this group are disproportionately elderly,
pensioners, poorlyeducated,
rural residents and female.
Based on the identifications of clustering of similar respondents into
geopolitical
orientations, we now turn to two related questions. First, we examine the
popularity of Putin
given the political context of these geopolitical orientations. Clearly
Putins popularity in early
2004 is a result of a myriad of factors, both personal and structural. Our
examination of his
appeal is driven not so much by personal political elements but by a focus
on the structural
characteristics of the Russian political system in which questions of
national identity, Russias
place in the world political system, and the evolving nature of Russian
geopolitical
imaginations play prominent roles. Second, we examine the relationship of
these geopolitical
12
orientations to the contemporary geopolitical traditions characterizing
Russian high geopolitical
culture. Returning to the nature of geopolitical critique, as summarized in
Figure 1, we use the
Russian example to show how the orientations evident in our empirical
clusters are connected
to long-standing traditions that have been the subject of deep debate in
the Russian public and
intellectual spheres (Smith, 1999b; Ingram, 2001).
THE MASKS OF PUTIN.
Contrary to Smiths argument in his 1999 article, we argue that it is not
Russian geopolitical
traditions, like Eurasianism, that have Protean masks. Rather, in
contemporary Russia, it is
policy-makers who wear different masks that are activated in the political
arena. Foremost

among these individuals is President Putin whose policies and political

maneuverings, in sharp
contrast to his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, have been remarkably
successful. Putins protean
qualities have been noted by political commentators. In Shevtsovas
analysis, for example, he
had the appeal of an Everyman and it was difficult to get behind the
inscrutable mask Putin
always wore (Shevtsova 2003, 214).
Drawing upon the analysis of Shevtsova and others, we argue that there
are three major
factors that account for Putins popularity besides the high macroeconomic growth based on
raw materials exports that Russia has experienced while he has been
President. The first is a
central characteristic of Russian political life, namely its tradition of
authoritarian state rule.
Russia has long been characterized by a strong centralizing state and
paternalistic rule by a
dominant leader. Russian leaders have tended to govern with a strong
hand, laying down the
law for others while presiding above it themselves. Power is personalized
in the figure of the
leader. In Shevtsovas analysis, the post-Communist period continued this
convention with
Yeltsin functioning more as an elected monarch than a democratic leader
(p. 59). Putins
13
presidency has continued this tradition while taking advantage of a
general societal yearning
for stability, predictability and strong leadership in the wake of the chaotic
and health-plagued
final years of Yeltsins presidency.
Putin has also skillfully re-accumulated the power lost by the state during
Yeltsins rule.
Putin has reined in the power of regional bosses throughout Russia,
undermining some,
compromising with others, and cutting deals in ways which have
strengthened what Russian
commentators term the verticality of power. Unlike Yeltsin, Putin has
demonstrated a lot less
tolerance of an independent media and moved determinedly to assert
control over the two
state-owned television stations and bring a third, the once independent
and critical NTV, under
indirect state influence and control via Gasprom. This has enabled the
Kremlin to produce and

manage the presidential image on television nightly so Russians develop

and maintain positive
images of his rule. The vast majority of Russians trust the news from
these Kremlin-dominated
networks (Petrova, 2004)
A tradition of paternalistic rule and manufacturing consent by state
control over
television are not guarantors of popularity as Communist rule and Yeltsins
fate demonstrated.
The third factor that accounts for Putins popularity is what Russians term
political
technologies. Pioneered in the West and brought to Russia by the political
consultants that
worked on the Yeltsin re-election campaign in 1996, this is the art of
governing through
symbolic politics combined with close observation and tracking of public
opinion polls. The
initial vagueness of Putins image allowed different groups to project their
values and
orientations upon him. His first presidential campaign was rema rkable for
its lack of specifics.
During his second campaign in early 2004, he acted in a similar manner.
Just after his February
speech in Moscow State University, where he seemed to be liberal
(McGregor, 2004), he went to
the Barents Sea, where he observed the navy manoeuvres wearing the
uniform of the
14
Commander-in-Chief and announced the development of a new strategic
weapon, thus
signaling the role of Russias military potential in balancing the world
geopolitical structure visvis the United States.
In his first Presidential years, Putin tended to steer a middle course
between the antiWestern storylines of the Communists and national patriots, on the one
hand, and the proWestern storylines of liberal reformers and cosmopolitans on the other
hand. While Putins 24
September 2001 speech was represented as his strategic choice of
siding with the West in the
war on terrorism by commentators (see OLoughlin, Tuathail and
Kolossov, 2004a), the
geopolitical orientations found in our survey reveal that his ability to
aggressively support the
American-led war against international terrorism had political limits.
Putins endorsement for

the American attack against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was not
followed up by public
support for the war against Saddam Husseins Iraq. Our survey found
overwhelming public
opposition to that war (69.2% mostly and definitely disapporove) and to
extending war to the
other two members of George Bushs axis of evil, North Korea and Iran
(10.5% and 14.5%
respectively). While those clusters likely to oppose him (two and six,
26.5% of the total sample)
were relatively clear, the congealing of the four other clusters into
sustained public support for
his foreign policy requires that foreign policy be distanced from the
belligerence of the Bush
administration.
This is precisely the trajectory Putin led foreign policy followed after our
survey,
shifting foreign policy masks on various issues, at once pro-Western yet
also a great Russian,
supporting a geo-economic strategy and capitalist liberalizing reforms
whilst also retaining a
concern with geopolitical development in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
(Putin marked the
first anniversary of September 11th 2001 by threatening a preemptive war
against Chechen
terrorists in Georgia). He called for greater levels of foreign direct
investment, yet also shored
15
up the strength of the domestic military-industrial complex; he subscribed
to Western liberal
values and the rule of law but also continued his hard-line war in
Chechnya; and he posed as
an American ally in the war against terrorism, while condemning US
policies in the Middle East
(Iraq and Palestine/Israel) (Kryshtanovskaya 2002).
GEOPOLITICAL ORIENTATIONS AND RUSSIAN GEOPOLITICAL
TRADITIONS
How do the popular geopolitical orientations identified in our survey relate
to the more
formalized traditions of Russian geopolitical culture? While there are
connections, there is no
direct correlation. Russian geopolitics has long been a high culture affair
of elites competing to
dominate an autocratic state with a weak culture of popular geopolitics
that received little
attention until recently. It is now becoming apparent that some
longstanding Russian

geopolitical traditions like Eurasianism have very limited popular support.

Table 1 reveals that
the Eurasianist geopolitical orientation among the Russian population is
confined to a small
Communist sub-cluster. Also, there is no apparent popular constituency
for the extremist
Heartland visions of Alexandr Dugin (for Dugins geopolitics, see Dugin
1997 and Ingram
2001).
Building on the classifications of Smith and others, incorporating the
events of the last
five years and drawing upon our survey results and other recent research
on public opinion, we
offer an updated portrait of Russian geopolitical culture as a series of
competing political
platforms and popular attitudes (Kolossov and Turovsky 2001; Smith
1999b; Tsygankov 2001).
Although we identify five geopolitical traditions in Table 2, we discuss only
the three most
significant as political positions with representation amongst certain socioeconomic groups in
Russian society. The tradition represented by Putin is a middle way
democratic statism that
Smith identifies as important. Whether it can be considered a form of
Eurasianism is a matter of
16
debate. Our argument is that its most important characteristic is that it
represents a balancing
soft authoritarian pragmatism. It is this that constitutes the vital centre
in current Russian
political life and geopolitical culture.
Table 2 about here
Figure 2 clarifies our summary of the popular geopolitical orientations as
evinced by the
survey, the elite discourses, and the current political parties and
personalities. Taking two
important orientations, Western versus Eurasianist and Russia as an
independent civilization
versus Russia as part of the Western tradition, we can relatively locate
each tradition. Though
there has been some shifting, especially towards the centre and the
coalescence of a democratic
statist tradition, the essential elements of the diagram were already
visible in post-Communist
politics in the early 1990s and Russian politics by the mid 1990s
(OLoughlin, Shin and Talbot,
1996).

Figure 2: Positioning of Russian geopolitical traditions, elite rhetoric and

political parties on two
key orientations.
17
Westernizers
In the economic transition in Russia over the past decade, advocates from
right (liberal) parties
guided by Westernizers have tried to push Russian foreign policy and
orientation towards
cooperation with NATO and the European Union. Westernizers live
predominantly in the rich
metropolitan centres of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and in other large
cities, as well as in the
regions of the European North and the north of Siberia (OLoughlin,
Tuathail and Kolossov,
2004b). In contemporary Russian politics, Westernism is usually
associated with the Union of
Right Forces (Soyuz pravykh sil, or SPS), the heir of broad democratic
movements of the early
1990s, when the influence of Westernization reached its peak. The
Westernist geopolitical
tradition firmly places Russia in Europe, with Russian culture viewed as an
organic part of the
Judeo-Christian civilization. It holds that only this civilization is viable,
and liberal democracy
based on it is the only possible way to govern society and to cope with the
challenges of the
contemporary world. Modernization, for these groups, is Westernization.
Key Westernist assumptions hold that the major national interest of Russia
is to reduce
as rapidly as possible the economic gap separating it from Western
countries by learning from
their experience and adapting Russian social and political institutions to
Western standards.
Russia must reject everything that can slow down its rapprochement with
the West, including
incompatible cultural values and traditions. It must not harbor ambition in
the near abroad,
because the loyalty of CIS states to Russia is volatile, costs too much, and
most importantly,
Russian efforts in this former Soviet area can damage relations with the
West.
The Westernizers believe that the basic geopolitical and strategic interests
of Russia do
not differ significantly from the West. The most important threat to
national security is Russias
own backwardness. Economic and social modernization based on a union
with the Western

community and supported by Western investments and imports of

Western technologies is the
18
highest priority. At the global scale, the key conflict of modernity is the
opposition between
democratic and authoritarian countries. Russias main task in relations
with CIS countries is to
support political and economic freedoms while avoiding any disputes over
borders. (For a
statement of such principles, see the foreign policy statement of the SPS
on their web site,
http://www.sps.ru/). Russia should back the West who must intervene
everywhere when human
rights are under threat. The SPS believes that Russia should integrate
itself into the heart of
decision-making about modernization and globalization (Pantin 2002).
Yet while the Westernism of Russian citizens certainly has a considerable consumerist
tone, well-being and quality of life are not the only criteria of a civilized country. The
words
Europe and European have stable and deeply-rooted positive
connotations in Russian
public opinion. They connote, first of all, well-being, social welfare and
prosperity, but also
attractive values and historical traditions that are culturally and
geographically close to Russia.
Images of West European countries and of European integration have
always been more
positive than those of the US in Russian public opinion. Over 60% of
Russians consistently
believe that West European countries (Germany, France, Italy, the
Netherlands, etc.) are
friendly to Russia. For the USA, in contrast, the percentage of respondents
who are of the same
opinion fluctuated in 1999-2003 between 17% and 39%; in August 2003 it
stood at 37%
(Kolossov, 2003a). Asked in 2003 about three countries which provoked
most sympathy to
them, 40% of Russian respondents, clearly transcending memories of
World War II, named
Germany in first place. France was listed by 34%, Japan by 24%, Italy by
19% and Great Britain
by 18%; the rating of the US was only 15%. The main reason for this poor
relative showing of
the United States is dislike for American unilateralism and its policies in
the Middle East
(Kolossov, 2003b).
19

Russian public opinion is favorable to the EU enlargement but opposed to

the eastward
expansion of NATO because the North Atlantic Organization is perceived
as the instrument of
the American dominance. While 56% of Russians agree that their country
is European (data
from our survey), almost 75% of Russian population backed in June 2003
the idea that their
country should aspire to join the EU (in March 2001, the figure was only
59%). Though, as
might be expected, younger and more educated people are more likely to
support joining the
EU, attitudes to the EU did not significantly vary depending on the type of
settlement and on
income. Big Europe is attractive (at least, now, when the prospect of
joining is only
hypothetical) to all social and regional groups of population (all data from
Klimov, 2003b).
Russian public opinion does not evaluate the US and the West only under
the
microscope of foreign policy but clearly separates views on current
international relations from
attitudes toward the United States and other Western countries, their
peoples and the Western
socio-economic and cultural model. This cultural and economic
component of the Wests image
is much more stable than the political one and constitutes an important
element of Russian
identity (OLoughlin 2001). On the one hand, most Russian citizens admire
the economic,
technological and social achievements of Western countries and are
persuaded that Russia must
and can reduce her laggard status and reach the same prosperity as the
West. On the other
hand, they realize how deep the gap remains and how difficult it is to
catch up to the West.
Some Russians stress and exaggerate the uniqueness of Russia, in
justifying its need in specific
social and economic recipes and even its superiority, as a more spiritual
country than the
West or as a unique civilization based on Orthodox values and/or the
culture combining
European and Asian heritages and features (Lapkin and Pantin, 2002).
After the 1917
revolution Russia was not fully recognized as part of the West. The
Bolsheviks tried to solve this
20

problem by championing an anti-Western identity that proclaimed Russias

superiority over the
West (Tysgankov and Tsygankov, 2002).
The December 2003 elections were considered a defeat of the two major
liberal proWestern parties, the SPS and Yabloko. At the same time, surveys show
that a defeat of
parliamentary liberal parties does not mean a decrease of liberal
electorate, which is
consistently estimated about 15-18% of the total number of voters (Bunin
et al., 2003; Kolossov
and Borodulina, 2004; Turovsky, 2004). Western liberals remain a
considerable and influential
faction of Russian public opinion.
Democratic Statism
The dominant geopolitical tradition in Russia is the centrist tendency
which Smith termed
democratic statism. It includes some elements of Eurasianism but, by no
means, can be
reduced to it. Sometimes this tendency is called Russian nationalism but
this term is a
simplification. Rather it is based on a longstanding history of statism
which grew up around
authoritarian centralization, imperial expansion and the domination of civil
society and public
life by a coercive state. The state in Russia has been always seen as a
protector, a referee and a
guarantor of social peace; its interests were mysterious, mythical and
sacred. At the same time,
the state was perceived as alien and hostile to a simple citizen. This
multidimensional attitude
of Russians to the state was brilliantly analyzed by the philosopher Nikolai
Berdyaev (1990) in
his book The Sources of Russian Communism. During the Soviet period,
the state was represented
as a benign complex furthering egalitarian and communitarian ideology
with citizens
encouraged towards self-sacrifice in the name of supreme national
interests. Soviet isolationism,
Communist Manichaeism, and geopolitical fears of encirclement by hostile
powers all
strengthened the deep roots of authoritarian statism in Russian political
life.
21
Statists, like Westernizers, view the main threat to national security as a
weak economy
and widespread poverty. Therefore, the task of foreign policy is to ensure
favorable conditions

for economic growth sufficient to reduce as rapidly as possible the gap in

the level of life
between Russia and the rich countries. Yet longstanding concerns like
control over the state
borders and protecting state sovereignty in order to guarantee Russian
autonomy in economic
and political decision-making and to defend national interests motivate
statists. Implicit in the
idea that increasing control over existing borders is a necessary element
of state-building is the
more controversial notion that the parts of the adjoining states of Ukraine,
Kazakhstan and
Belarus with strong Russian heritages should be economically and political
reintegrated with
Russia. The vast majority of Russians do not want any military or political
actions to achieve a
goal that might be confrontational or costly in achievement (Talbot, 2004).
The geopolitical vision of statists is that Russia must again become a
great power
located in both Europe and Asia. For statists, one of Russias foreign policy
objectives should be
to counter the accumulation of hegemonic power by the United States.
They believe that
unipolarity destabilizes the world geopolitical equilibrium and Russia
needs to balance undue
US power by aligning and supporting alternative poles of power. Such a
zero-sum vision of
the world was prominent in formalized statements of Russian foreign
policy under President
Yeltsin and confirmed in the Concept of Foreign Policy of Russian
Federation adopted in July
2000 a few months after Putin came to power (Kontsepzia, 2001; Kolossov
and Turovsky, 2001).
After the events of September 11 and the turn of Putin to the West, this
rhetoric of multipolarity
faded for a while. As the unilateralism of US foreign policy became
apparent and those in the
Russian state perceived no payoff for Putins strong support for the US
war in Afghanistan,
the notion has resurfaced. Shevtsova (2003, 242) uses the term
multivectored to describe
Putins foreign policy and what she sees as a Putin Doctrine defined by a
pro-Western
22
orientation, a priority for economic interests in foreign policy, and a
normalization of relations
between Moscow and its neighbors, especially former allies of the USSR.
Statists believe

Russian geostrategy should be pragmatic for a country situa ted in two

continents. Russias
relations should be tout azimuth, in particular with China and India.
Justifying this position,
statists sometimes sound like Eurasianists arguing that Russia is an
independent civilization
distinctive from the West.
The political party Edinaya Rossia or United Russia is the party of
power that easily
won the 2003 Duma elections as a political faction that supports Putins
administration. As both
surveys of VTsIOM and FOM show, memories about real and supposed
glory years when
Russia (in the guise of the Soviet Union) had a parity with the largest
world powers is one of
the cornerstones of Russian identity and a basis of global respect. The
political status of the
country and its parity with global leaders is understood as a guarantee of
independent Russian
development and the basis of an effort to finally catch up to the West
(Zudin, 2002).
The 2003 election manifesto of Edinaya Rossia expresses the challenge
facing Russia as
one of coping with the inevitability of globalization. Russia faces a stark
choice: Either we
become one of the most important and influential parts of contemporary
world, or we will be
integrated into it against our will and on conditions that we will be able to
work out. Implicitly
conceptualizing the country as a corporation that must adapt, the
manifesto declares that the
state needs an ideology of success, that is nothing less than a new
national ideal that
transcends the historic choices that have faced Russia.
As for the near abroa d, democratic statists suggest the development of
relations with
them on the basis of pragmatism and national interests, thus clearly
preferring bilateral
relations and ad hoc unions with two or more countries (most likely
Belarus and Ukraine). Its
23
election manifesto declares that Russia should preserve political and
military stability in Eurasia
but act by economic and political means not through the use of force.
A tougher version of statism is represented by the bloc Rodina
(Motherland), also a
successful party in the 2003 elections, winning 9% of the vote. This
eclectic bloc united a protest

vote and the so-called non-ideological wing of the former Communist

electorate (pensioners
and people over 45 were more prone to vote for this party than the
average). Rodina successfully
exploited the themes of social injustice and the campaign against hyperrich tycoons unleashed
by the Putin administration. Yet, it also exploited public fears that the
Putin administration was
making excessive concessions to the United States in the field of foreign
policy thus potentially
undermining Russias national security. More than Putin, Rodina uses the
rhetoric of the
cultural-civilizational exceptionalism of Russia. It argues that Russia has a
unique combination
of human, technological, mineral and territorial resources that allows it to
create a regional
trade and economic zone. The security of this zone should be based on
military-political
cooperation between the participants of the Treaty on Collective Security
(some of the CIS
countries). From Rodinas perspective, NATO is the major threat to Russia,
because it is the only
organization which can impose its political will at a global scale. The party
envisions potentially
serious conflict provoked by a confrontation of Russias vital interests in
the near abroad and
NATO attempts to expand the area of its responsibility. Unlike United
Russia, the position of
Rodina is clearly anti-Western.
After a decade of post-Soviet Russia, the democratic statist geopolitical
tradition
matched popular expectations. In a FOM survey of 8 November 2003, 48%
of respondents said
that they wanted Russia considered abroad as a strong, great,
invincible power; 22% as a
rich and prosperous, 9% as economically independent, not
indebted and 6% as
educated, civilized and cultural country. 16% declared simply that
Russia should have a
24
reputation of a respected and dignified power
(http://bd.english.fom.ru/report/map/projects/dominant/dominant2003/519
_94/1253_113/
4188_119/ed034512; accessed 1 March 2004)
Neo-Eurasianism and Neo-Communists
Neo-Eurasianism is part of the ideological doctrine of the contemporary
Communist party.

Neo-Eurasianists consider Russia as a leading continental power,

constituting a particular
civilization based on an autarkic and protectionist economy and on the
union between Slavic
and Turkic peoples. They call for opposition against commercialized
maritime (Atlantist)
civilization, led by the United States, grounded on a market economy and
on liberal democracy.
They believe that Russia is destined to restore a great Eurasian empire
and is condemned by
its very geographical situation between Europe and Asia to rivalry with the
West, though
peaceful coexistence is necessary. They demonize the notion of
globalization, interpreting it as
a mondialist plot. For Neo-Communists, Russia through its natural,
historical and
economical development, embraces most of the post-Soviet space.
One of the bases of Eurasianism is the broad notion of a special path of
Russias
development that is adhered to by a large proportion of its citizens.
However, a special path
does not mean the rejection of Western values, legal norms, as well as
political and economic
institutions; there is a social consensus that Russia should close the
economic gap separating it
from the West. The key debate is how to fulfill this objective. Many citizens
share the idea that
since Russian society is still so different from the West, classical Western
strategies of
development cannot be applied to Russia. Asserting a special path is no
more than a socially
acceptable third way between what its proponents term the liberal
extremism of typical
Westernizers and the return to the Soviet dream promoted by orthodox
Communists.
25
Recognizing Russian exceptionalism will allow the state to defend its true
national interests,
avoid humiliation on the international scene and keep alive its potential as
a great power
(Diligensky 2002; Klimov 2003a; Lapkin and Pantin 2002).
The concept of multipolarity in foreign policy is always firmly supported by
the
Communist party and national-patriot opposition. Fear of American
hegemony motivates this,
though neo-Eurasianists recognize the possibility of a strategic
compromise with Europe

because many European states themselves strongly challenge American

unilateralism. NeoEurasianists believe that Russia should be neither oriented towards the
East or West. They
believe in principles of power balancing in international relations and look
for alliances with
other anti-hegemonic states including Iran, India, and China (Ingram
2001).
The Open letter of the Communist party leader, Gennadii Zyuganov
(November 2001)
declared that events of 9/11 only confirm again and again that Russia
has ever been, remains
and will always be a Eurasian country. Though, according to Zyuganov,
Communists do not
call on confrontation with the West, and they want to live with it in peace
and friendship as
equal and respected partners , Russias potential allies are to be found in
the East. One of the
leading Communist deputies, Viktor Ilukhin makes the concrete proposal
of opposing
unilateral Westernism with a union of three Russia, India, and China,
plus the Arab world
(Andriyakina 2001). Zyuganov consistently condemned Putins support of
the West declared
war on terrorism after September 11. He stated that international
terrorism was the reverse side
of world imperialism, a direct result and inseparable element of the new
geopolitical
imperialist globalism.
The electorate, however, appeared jaded with the traditional Communist
discourse and
leadership in the 2003 Duma elections as the CPRF saw its share of the
vote drop from 22.7% to
12.6%. Edinaya Rossia (United Russia) successfully cut into the traditional
Communist electorate
26
by creating an image of itself as not only the party of power associated
with popular president
but as a party that was also close to traditional Soviet values. Remarkably,
Edinaya Rossia used
portraits of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the KGB, and of Josef Stalin
together with other more
recent political figures and symbols in its electoral literature. In other
words, being the party of
power, it ceased to be ideologically anti-Communist, but blamed the
Communist leaders and
the Communist party for concluding the union with tycoons. The CPRF
thus lost the mantle of

a consistent party of the left (Bunin et al., 2003).

There is some overlap between support for the Communist party and the
neoEurasianist and Russianist geopolitical positions (Table 2). What is
common among these
geopolitical orientations is opposition to the pro-Western strategy of the
Putin administration.
This Eurasianist tradition is now represented mainly by small groups of
intellectuals, which
have failed to get any electoral support. The best example is the failure at
the December 2003
elections of the Eurasian Union founded by Alexander Dugin known for
his geopolitical
writings inspired by traditional (classical) geopolitics of power (Ingram,
2001). The only part
exception is the discourse and the electoral practice of the LDPR known as
a personalityparty,
animated by its leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who after some bargaining
always finishes
by supporting the government on the most important questions, despite
loud nationalist
rhetoric directed at his voters.
Radical-expansionists consider multipolarity as the need to create a huge
Eurasian
empire and to conclude an alliance with such countries like Libya, Iraq,
and Iran (Pantin and
Lapkin 2002). What has united the CPRF and the LDPR is opposition to the
rapid
Westernization of the economy and society. Like the CPRF, the LDPR
protests against the
unipolar world dominated by the U.S. and opposed the NATO bombing of
Yugoslavia in
support of the Kosovars as potentially de-stabilizing the post-Cold War
order (OLoughlin and
27
Kolossov, 2002). But in other foreign and domestic policy arenas, the
LDPR positions are starkly
different (Tsygankov 2001). The LDPR proposes in its official program, in
fact, to come back to
old empirical or explicit geopolitical schemes: to focus on internal
problems but to restore the
Russian state in its natural borders with a buffer zone of friendly or at
least neutral regimes
along them (referred to as geopolitical envelops) (Pantin and Lapkin
2002).
CONCLUSIONS
President Putins overwhelming success in both the recent Duma and
presidential elections is a

testament to the success of his protean political personality and

electorate strategy as well as his
administrations domination of the states major media outlets. He is, as
Shevtsova (2003, 162)
notes an amorphous political leader who constantly changed his
contours, trying to appeal to
all forces simultaneously. She notes that artists who painted portraits of
him complained that
they couldnt capture him; he remains consistently elusive. This is also the
conclusion of
Tregubova (2003).
While this rhetoric is sometimes trite and overstated, it is our conclusion
that any
Russian political leader aspiring to Putin-like levels of popularity must be
well practiced in
Protean stratagems because the Russian public is characterized both by a
series of different
geopolitical clusters and a cross-cutting structure of popular geopolitical
orientations. All across
the post-Soviet space, fledgling bureaucratic institutions and
administrative structures are
striving to consolidate and legitimate themselves as genuine state
institutions representing a
transcendent and transparent national identity. Nowhere has this process
been more difficult
than in Russia, the home of the institutions and nation most closely
associated with the Soviet
ideology. Russia lost an empire virtually overnight and has been striving to
find a place for
itself since that time. This crisis of national identity in Russia is not yet
over and is closely
28
related to the clarification of the role of Russia as the inheritor of the
Soviet tradition of great
power geopolitics as well as the dominant power on the Eurasian
landmass.
Russian geopolitical traditions are elitist by definition; they articulate
positions that are
often removed from the day-to-day affairs of ordinary people. Yet these
elite discourses are not
disconnected from the public. Putins democratic statism, first outlined as
late Yeltsinism by
Smith (1999a), dominates the political centre in Russian political life.
Unlike Smiths portrait,
however, democratic statism is pro-Western, not Eurasianist, in
civilizational terms. While
Smith was writing in 1998-1999, it was not yet clear which path would be
followed by

democratic statists and the shifting centers of power in Russia. Elements

of Eurasianism have
persisted but they are not now seen as the basis for an alternative special
path for Russia.
Putins political profile has largely Westernist features but he is also a
skilled politician who can
put on an Eurasianist mask and articulate its lines with conviction when
speaking of Russias
historical national interests before an appropriate audience and at a
symbolic site. Eurasianism
can thus be called up as the occasion demands it. It is this quality that
makes him a successful
geopolitical actor, a modern Russian Proteus. But it is his control of the
media that makes sure
that his performance and the ongoing production of Russian geopolitical
culture is on television
for generalized consumption.
29
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1
Table 1: Characteristics of the Six Clusters of Geopolitical Orientations
Variable Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3 Cluster 4 Cluster 5 Cluster 6
Geopolitical Ignorance ** -10.0 -9.2 -10.8 +74.7
US war on Taliban is correct -10.2 +44.5 -7.9 -18.7
Approve US attacks on other countries (Libya, Somalia
etc)
-10.2 -12.2 +63.3 -13.0
Approve attacking Iran, Iraq, N. Korea * -12.9 -12.8 -10.9 +71.3 -12.5 -7.2
US-Russian relations are getting better +8.7 -17.1 +10.1 -12.9
Alliance with US against terrorism is correct +11.3 -14.0 +16.6 -22.2
Russia is equal partner to the US -18.1 +6.1 +13.0 -12.7
Agree that apt. bombs in Russia and 9-11 attack are
similar
-7.6 +25.3
Russia is ranked in top10 in political influence in world +13.9 -30.2 +16.0 -15.9
International terrorism is the biggest threat to Russia + 7.5 -12.6 +12.7
Ukraine is important for Russia +13.7 +14.8 -40.4 +17.7
Belarus is important for Russia +15.6 +19.7 -46.4 +23.1
Transcaucasia is important for Russia -14.6 -9.7 +59.8
Central Asia/Kazakhstan is important for Russia -9.4 +28.7
Western Europe is important for Russia -19.6 -8.0 +20.1 +18.9
US is important for Russia -12.9 +12.3 -32.2 -7.4 +15.0 +27.7
Russia is a European state +16.9 -19.5 +16.1 +7.6 +19.6 -7.9
Number of Muslims is increasing in Russia +16.9 -8.2 +15.0 -21.4
Interested in foreign policy +11.7 -7.7 +6.2 -23.6
Approve Putins foreign policy +11.6 -19.3 -9.9
Edintsvo supporter +6.9 -11.9
Muslims of the North Caucasus +4.5
Muslims of the Urals-Volga region +8.2
Atheist +8.5
Age 18-30 -9.9 +11.8 -6.8
Over age 60 +5.9 -8.0 -12.3 +19.9
Female +11.1 -17.7 +9.0
Communist party supporters -5.2 +9.2

Married +8.1
Worker +8.2
Low educational level +13.0

2
Highest Educational Level +7.7
Muslim +7.5
Oblast capital +7.9
Rural residence +12.9
Single +6.9
Pensioners -14.0 +21.6

* Average of answers to three separate questions for each country.

** Geopolitical ignorance is equal to the average of I dont know and
Any of the above countries in answer to the question: What
countries, from the list below, do you believe should be considered as an
imperative part of Russias foreign policy decisions?
3
Russian Geopolitical Orientations.
Geopolitical
cultures
Geopolitical
traditions
Political
philosop
hy
Geopolitical
borders and
identity
World geopolitical vision National
interest
Type of state Major threats to
national security
Westernizers Western liberal democracy is the only
viable civilization; all countries must
finally go through the same stages of
development as Western countries.
The key division is the conflict
between democratic and authoritarian
countries; the West should intervene
everywhere when human rights are
under threat. Russia should completely
withdraw from former Soviet republics
To become an
integral part of
the West : to
decrease the
economic gap
with it and to
cultivate
Western-style
political
institutions
Russias own
backwardness and
unstability

Western
liberals
Democrats
Western
liberal
Western
liberal
Russia is a
European
country; her
borders coinicide
with her political
borders
The world is increasingly
interdependent, culturally and
politically diverse, but the West is on
its focus. Key players are cultures that
maintain a diversity of economic and
political institutions within which they
negotiate the respect of human rights
through the existing institutions
To find an
appropriate
culturesensitive
path
to reach world
economic and
national
security;
Liberal
parliamentary
democracy
Russias
backwardness;
external economic
threats; violation of
basic human rights
and disrespect for
cultural pluralism

4
Democratsstatists
Realpolit
ik
Russia is a great
power or a big
regional power
located in both
Europe and Asia;
it should
strengthening her
statehood within
her actual
borders and
contribute to
integration of at
least of a part of

the post-Soviet
space
The world is not inherently hostile, but
it does consist of selfish power-seeking
state actors whose interests must be
balanced. The main Russias mission is
to maintain political and military
balance in the Eurasia (the post-Soviet
space) and keeping here political
stability but without a formal control
and the use of force.
To maintain
historical
contacts with
the West but to
develop
actively also
relations with
Asian
countries. To
remain an
independent
civilization
and to be
capable of
resisting
hegemonic
ambitions
anywhere in
the world
Democracy
taking into
account
national
cultural and
historical
traditions
External threats from
unstable regions;
economic theats;
cultural threats to
national identity and
sovereignty,
Statists and
NeoEurasianists
Neo-Communists Marxism Russia is a
unique Eurasian
civilization
which naturally,
historically and
economically
embraces most
post-Soviet space
The international system is bipolar and
determined by a struggle between the

Russian civilization and American-led

Western imperialism; but peaceful
coexistence is necessary.
To restore its
role as a great
power or a
superpower
and to
integrate the
post-Soviet
space. To
maintain
geopolitical
stability,
despite of
incompatibility
of the interests
with those of
the West. To
reach
economic selfsufficiency
A socialist
regime with
state control
over economy
and other
fields of social
life
Military, political,
economic and
cultural expansion of
the West

5
Radicals expansionists
Russia is a great
Eurasian empire;
today borders are
artificial
The international system is bipolar and
divided by a struggle for territory; the
key players are empires that expand
their spheres of influence
Russia is an
independent
civilization an
independent
civilization
and a landbased
empire.
Russias
interests are
mutually
exclusive with
the interests of
themaritime

civilization;
the only way
to survive is
constant
expansion in
union with
different allies,
including in
Europe
An
authoritarian
regime with
the strong role
of the state in
all fields of
social life
The main threats
come from sea-based
powers and their
ideology
Russianists Isolationists
Russian
ethnic
nationali
sm
Russia is a great
power
The world consists of selfish powerseeking
state actors with conflicting
interests; the external environment is
hostile
Russia is an
independent
civilization large nationstate
seeking
to keep its
sovereignty
and cultural
uniqueness
Political
regime with
the strong role
of the state
Threats to national
security have a
systemic character
and are both external
and internal

The table is compiled with the use of arguments developed by Smith, 1999b; Kolossov
and Mironenko, 2001; Ts ygankov, 2003.