Russkiy Mir and the Russian World: Russia's Soft Power

Soft power (Nye 1990) is widely treated as a key instrument in the world politics today, and actors are trying to employ it to reach their aims. Among these, Russia has developed and implemented its own understanding of soft power. This research investigates Russia’s soft power strategy through the concept of the "Russian World". There literature on soft power has tended to deal with the development of the concept with a focus on western countries. Moreover, little has been written about Russkiy Mir in the context of Russia’s soft power strategy.Hypothesizing that "Russkiy Mir" works as an instrument of soft power leverage, this work will investigate its role in promoting Russian foreign policy agenda. This work will rely primarily upon qualitative methods, such as interviews with foreign policy experts. Quantitative data will be used to analyse the position of the Russian language in Central Asia and educational policies. The findings of this work will contribute to the understanding of soft power and its means, moreover they will indicate potential avenues for future comparisons of soft power strategies in non-western countries.