UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO UNIVERSITÀ CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE DI MILANO UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI GENOVA UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI PAVIA Ph.D. PROGRAM POLITICAL STUDIES – 30th cohort DOCTORAL THESIS "SOFT POWER REVISITED: WHAT ATTRACTION IS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS" DISCIPLINARY SCIENTIFIC SECTOR: SPS/04 Ph.D. CANDIDATE ARTEM PATALAKH SUPERVISOR PROF. ALESSANDRO COLOMBO Ph.D. DIRECTOR PROF. FRANCESCO ZUCCHINI ACADEMIC YEAR 2016/2017 ii The PhD program in Political Studies (POLS) (30th cohort) stems from the collaboration of four Universities, namely Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano, Università degli Studi di Genova, Università degli Studi di Milano, Università degli Studi di Pavia. The University of Milan serves as the administrative headquarters and provides the facilities for most teaching activities. Acknowledgements iii Acknowledgements Now that the three-year-long PhD period of intense learning and challenging myself has finished, I want to reflect on those whose aid has made-one way or another-this thesis possible. Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Alessandro Colombo, whose careful guidance was of particularly great use for me in the beginning, when I was having difficulties with finding a good research path. It is largely the merit of his being demanding that working on this thesis has greatly contributed-as least, as it seems to me-to the advancement of my analytical and critical thinking skills, helped me develop an eye for details, pay more attention to wording and formulation, routinely verify all data and sources and not jump to conclusions. As my research proceeded, I gradually got increasingly able to perform most analysis by myself with less and less dependence on Prof. Colombo's supervision. For this, I would also like to give due credit to him, remembering educational theorist Thomas Carruthers' famous quote describing a good teacher as "one who makes himself progressively unnecessary." Moreover, I have presented parts of this research at various occasions-conferences, workshops and colloquia-where a number of people reflected on my talks, giving me helpful suggestions. Among such, I would like to highlight the contributions of Andrea Carati, Corrado Stefanachi, Simone Dossi, Nicolò Raico, Andrea Locatelli, Fabio Franchino, Marco Clementi and Giampiero Cama. I especially gratefully acknowledge Peter van Elsuwege, John Gaventa and Francesco N. Moro, the discussants who read and made useful comments on my-often ill-edited-conference papers. I would like to express my particular appreciation to Michele Chiaruzzi and Sonia Lucarelli for their elaborate suggestions on an earlier draft of this thesis. Also, my sincere thanks goes to Francesco Capuzzi, Angelica Puricelli, Giovanni Gentili and Mirele Plenishti, my fellow students who have become my good friends and without whose immense support I would have hardly survived in Milan with my poor knowledge of Italian, especially during the first year. I am particularly indebted to Mirele who kindly reviewed two versions of my research proposal and translated this thesis' abstract into Italian. Finally, I thank Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano for financing my Acknowledgements iv research and all the members of NASP's Board and Steering Committee for the overall organisation of our PhD program. My special appreciation goes to the program's coordinators, Prof. Francesco Zucchini and Licia C. Papavero, for their invaluable assistance with multiple administrative and organisational issues which I have encountered living in Italy. Artem Patalakh Milan, 30 April 2018 Abstract v Abstract This thesis problematises the bases of soft power, that is, causal mechanisms connecting the agent (A) and the subject (B) of a power relationship. As the literature review reveals, their underspecification by neoliberal IR scholars, the leading proponents of the soft power concept, has caused a great deal of scholarly confusion over such questions as how to clearly differentiate between hard and soft power, how attraction (soft power's primary mechanism) works and what roles structural and relational forces play in hard/soft power. In an effort to ascertain the bases, I address this issue not from the viewpoint of A's policies or resources, like do IR neoliberal scholars, but in terms of B's psychological perception of A. Employing social psychological accounts, I argue that attraction can be produced in three distinct ways, namely 1) through B's identification with A ("emotional" attraction), 2) via B's appreciation of A's competence/knowledge in a particular field ("rational" attraction) and 3) by means of the activation of B's internalised values which contextually prescribe B to act in A's favour ("social" attraction). Importantly, depending upon the way attraction is produced, it is peculiar in a number of characteristics, the main of which are power scope, weight and durability. Insights from social psychology also show that unlike soft power, hard power requires not only B's relevant perception of the A-B relationship (as coercive or rewarding), but also A's capability to actualise a threat of punishment and/or a promise of reward. I argue this difference can be fairly treated as definitional rather than empirical, which implies that coercion and reward necessarily have both relational and structural dimensions, whereas for attraction, a structural one alone suffices, while a relational one may or may not be present. Having explicated the soft power bases, I illustrate each of them using three "most likely" case studies, namely Serbia's policies towards Russia (emotional attraction), Kazakhstan's approach to relations with the EU (rational attraction) and Germany's policies vis-à-vis Israel (social attraction). Table of Contents vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements iii Abstract v Table of Contents vi List of Abbreviations viii List of Tables and Figures x In Lieu of Introduction 1 PART ONE. SOFT POWER AND ATTRACTION: ACADEMIC DEBATE ON CONCEPTUAL ISSUES 5 1. Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 5 Introduction 5 1.1. Overview on the Concept of Power in Social Sciences 6 1.1.1. Power: Definitions and Disputable Issues 6 1.1.2. Debate on the "Faces" of Power 10 1.2. IR Scholarship on the Concept of Power: A Part of Social Sciences or Apart from Social Sciences? 13 1.2.1. (Neo-)Realist Conception: Elements of National Power 13 1.2.2. Neoliberal Conception: Interdependence and Economic Wealth 18 1.2.3. Constructivist Conception: Towards Multidimensionality 22 Discussion 27 2. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 29 Introduction 29 2.1. Definition, Its Evolution and the Concept's Place Among Related Concepts 31 2.2. Soft, Hard and Smart Power 33 2.3. Attraction: An Agent-Centered Perspective 40 2.4. Attraction Between Agency and Structure 52 2.5. Subject-Centered Perspective of Attraction: The Problem of Power Bases 58 Discussion 63 3. Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 68 Introduction 68 3.1. Research Goals 68 3.2. Theoretical Framework 69 3.2.1. Constructivism, Social Psychology and Unitary Actor Assumption 69 3.2.2. Coercion, Reward, Attraction: A Subject-Centered Perspective 70 3.3. Analytical Framework 72 3.3.1. French and Raven's Bases of Power 72 3.3.2. Hard Power: Coercion and Reward 73 Table of Contents vii 3.3.3. "Emotional" Attraction 75 3.3.4. "Rational" Attraction 84 3.3.5. "Social" Attraction 88 Discussion 95 PART TWO. ATTRACTION BETWEEN IR ACTORS: CASE STUDIES 100 A Note On Methodology and Case Selection 100 4. "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 105 Introduction 105 4.1. Serbia's Identification with Russia: Society and Political Elite 107 4.2. The West as the Other 110 4.3. Affection toward Russia and Serbia-West Conflicts 113 4.4. Trauma and Victimisation 119 4.5. Relations with Russia and Accession to the EU 121 4.6. Russia's Attractiveness-and Russia's Serbia Policies: History and Contemporaneity 124 4.7. The Church Factor 132 4.8. Alternative Explanations 133 Discussion 136 5. "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 141 Introduction 141 5.1. Astana's Foreign Policy: Fundamental Motives 142 5.2. Kazakhstan's Approach to the EU: Key Determinants 148 5.3. Kazakhstani Political Regime and Brussels' Approach to Astana 151 Discussion 161 6. "Social" Attraction: Germany―Israel 168 Introduction 168 6.1. German Political Class and the Theme of Moral Debt 170 6.2. Where Controversies Appear: Public Opinion and Civil Society 174 6.3. Limitations of Realpolitik Explanations 179 Discussion 189 Concluding Remarks 195 Research Implications 195 Theoretical and Methodological Implications 195 Empirical Implications 197 Policy Implications 198 Limitations 199 Directions for Future Research 200 Bibliography 204 List of Abbreviations viii List of Abbreviations ASEAN―Association of Southeast Asian Nations BND―Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst) CDU/CSU―Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union CIA―Central Intelligence Agency CSTO―Collective Security Treaty Organisation DM―Deutsche Mark EAEU―Eurasian Economic Union EBRD―European Bank for Reconstruction and Development EEC―European Economic Community EMU―Economic and Monetary Union EPCA―Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement EU―European Union FDI―Foreign Direct Investment FRG―Federal Republic of Germany GDR―German Democratic Republic ICJ-International Court of Justice ICTY―International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia IGO―Intergovernmental Organisation IR―International Relations LGBT―Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender NAFTA―North Atlantic Free Trade Area NATO―North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NGO―Non-Governmental Organisation PCA―Partnership and Cooperation Agreement PLO―Palestine Liberation Organization PM―Prime Minister R&D―Research and Development SPD―Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) UK―United Kingdom UN―United Nations List of Abbreviations ix UNESCO―United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNRWA―United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East UNSC―United Nations Security Council UNMIL―United Nations Mission in Liberia US―United States WWII―Second World War List of Tables and Figures x List of Tables and Figures Table 1. Taxonomy of Power. Table 2. Hard and Soft Power. Table 3. Comparison of Hard and Soft Power. Figure 4. Dichotomous and Continuous Power. Figure 5. A Spectrum of Power Behaviours. Figures 6. Process of Soft Empowerment. Table 7. Soft Power Sources, Referees, and Receivers. Table 8. Foundations of Soft Power. Table 9. Soft Power Process without and with A's Explicit Intentional Attraction/Persuasion. Table 10. Soft Power/Attraction Currencies. Figure 11. Framework for Decision: Conform or Violate? Table 12. Characteristics of Hard and Soft Power in Subject-Centered Terms. Table 13. Two Models of Attraction. In Lieu of Introduction 1 In Lieu of Introduction "I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole-and yet-and yet-it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life!" ― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865. Back in 1990, former US National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski referred to Joseph Nye's then newly published Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power as "a timely and forceful response to doomsayers" (quoted in Nye 1990b: front cover, emphasis added). Fourteen years later, erstwhile US State Secretary Madeleine Albright said that Soft Power: The Means to Succeed in World Politics, another book by Nye, was "as brilliant as . . . timely" (quoted in Nye 2004: front cover, emphasis added). Disappointingly, as much as I might like to, a person living and working in Europe today can hardly attach the epithet "timely" to a doctoral thesis on soft power. Indeed, in recent years, the 2014 Russia's aggression against Ukraine, the 2015 Greek government debt and refugee crises, the 2016 Brexit, coupled with ceaseless terrorist attacks, the rise of Scottish and Catalan separatism and an ascent of far-right parties and populist regimes all across the EU have brought "harder" topics to the forefront. This is to say nothing of the fact that the very concept of "soft power" seems generally unpopular in the EU context. Indeed, European officials largely discard it as American and/or ideological, while scholars researching the EU likewise prefer using other similar concepts, such as "normative," "transformative" or "civilian" power, conceiving of them as better reflecting the EU setting (Nielsen 2016: 8-9). This is not to suggest, however, that my thesis has no topicality. First, the fact that the "soft power" concept is relatively seldom used in Europe in no way means the same trend is observable everywhere else. Once coined vis-à-vis the foreign policy of the US, it has been later widely employed in research on other countries (including non-Western and non-democratic ones) and, what is more, in some countries, it has become an indispensable part of domestic foreign policy discourse and undergone scholarly adjustments to account for the peculiarities of those nations. The most exemplary in this respect is China, where "soft power" has not only firmly entered the language of official speeches and documents, but also In Lieu of Introduction 2 become the subject of a heated scholarly debate. This eventually resulted in the transformation of "soft power" into "cultural power," a concept which arguably considers China's specificities more carefully (for details, see Zhang 2017: 23-36). Internationally, applications of the "soft power" concept have become the focus of the special issues of well-reputed journals,1 monographs and edited volumes released by prominent publishers 2 and well as academic and professional conferences.3 In 2014, a group of Italian and Colombian political scientists chose the expression "soft power" as the title of their newly founded academic journal.4 Second, in general, the popularity of social science theories tends to hinge on their relevance for explaining the trends and needs of the time. To take a case in point, "soft power" appeared in the 1990s, around the end of the Cold War, reflecting, similarly to other academic accounts born at that period,5 the then widespread intuitive perception of encroaching international peacefulness. Yet, successful social science theories usually outlive the context in which they were created and, even if changing circumstances may make them temporarily forgotten 1 See, e.g., Journal of Political Power's 2016 special issue 9(3) on the soft power of BRICS, Politics' 2015 special issue 35(3-4) of the soft power of "hard states" and Politics & Policy's 2017 special issue on soft power in the Indo-Pacific region. Incidentally, examples of special issues on soft power can be found also in national scientific journals. Among them is the 2008 special issue 10(2) of the Turkish journal Insight Turkey, devoted to soft power in Turkish foreign policy, and the 2014 special issue 9(2) of the Russian International Organisations Research Journal, dedicated to variations in national soft power strategies. 2 The most recent examples include Zhang, Xiaoling, Wasserman, Herman & Winston Mano, eds. (2016). China's Media and Soft Power in Africa: Promotion and Perceptions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan; Chatin, Mathilde & Giulio Gallarotti, eds. (2017). Emerging Powers in International Politics: The BRICS and Soft Power. New York: Routledge; Jödicke, Ansgar, ed. (2017). Religion and Soft Power in the South Caucasus. New York: Routledge; Kugiel, Patryck, ed. (2017). India's Soft Power: A New Foreign Policy Strategy. New York: Routledge; Chitty, Naren, Ji, Li, Rawnsley, Gary D. & Craig Hayden, eds. (2017). The Routledge Handbook of Soft Power. New York: Routledge; Zhang, Guozuo, ed. (2017). Research Outline for China's Cultural Soft Power. Singapore: Springer; Hashimoto, Kayoko, ed. (2018). Japanese Language and Soft Power in Asia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan etc. 3 Among them are, e.g., the panel "Soft Power and its Critiques" at the conference "Power, Culture and Social Framing" (Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change, Manchester, UK, 3 September 2015), the conference "Russian Soft Power: Moscow's Struggle for Influence in Europe and How the EU Should Respond" (Rome Chamber of Commerce, Italy, 9 June 2016), the panel "The Russian Language as an Instrument in Russia's Soft Power Toolbox" at the conference "The Politics of Multilingualism: Possibilities and Challenges" (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, 23 May 2017), the conference "Cinema, Soft Power and Geo-political Change" (University of Leeds, UK, 19-21 June 2017), the conference "Soft Power: Theory, Resources, Discourse" (Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia, 20 October 2017) etc. 4 For its official website, visit Soft Power: Revista euro-americana de teorìa e historia de la politica y del derecho. http://www.softpowerjournal.com/ (accessed: 30 October 2017). 5 Among such, one can recall, e.g., "democratic peace" or Fukuyama's "end of history." In Lieu of Introduction 3 or ignored, such theories often experience a rebirth once the time is right. During the 2008 financial crisis, for example, Karl Marx's Das Kapital suddenly acquired a particular popularity in Germany, as both publishers and booksellers were commonly noting (Connolly 2008). Hence, even though today "soft power" may be of limited timeliness in EU politics, one may expect it will get a closer attention when the bloc overcomes the current difficulties. This study addresses the problem of soft power bases, i.e., causal mechanisms linking the agent (A) and the subject (B) engaged in a power relationship. Their underdetermination by neoliberal IR scholars, the primary advocates of the soft power concept, has entailed confusion around such issues as how to discriminate between hard and soft power, how attraction (soft power's primary mechanism) functions and what roles structural and relational forces play in hard/soft power. In a bid to elucidate the bases, I address this issue not in terms of A's policies or resources, like do neoliberal IR scholars, but from the standpoint of B's psychological perception of A. Applying social psychological perspectives, I show that attraction can be produced in three individual ways, that is, 1) through B's identification with A ("emotional" attraction), 2) by means of B's appreciation of A's competence/knowledge in a certain sphere ("rational" attraction) and 3) via the activation of B's internalised values that situationally prescribe B to act for A's benefit ("social" attraction). Moreover, depending on how attraction is generated, it is peculiar in a number of qualities, the primary of which are power scope, weight and durability. Insights from social psychology also suggest that as distinct from soft power, hard power involves not only B's relevant perception of the A-B relationship (as coercive or rewarding), but also A's capability to fulfil a threat of punishment and/or a promise of reward. I argue this distinction can be justly considered as definitional rather than empirical, which follows that coercion and reward necessarily have both relational and structural aspects, whilst for attraction, a structural one alone is enough, whereas a relational one may or may not be present. Structurally, my thesis is divided into two parts. The first one, as its title "Soft Power and Attraction: Academic Debate on Conceptual Issues" suggests, is dedicated to theoretical problems around the concept of soft power and the role of attraction in it. To provide an insight into the larger social science debate on the In Lieu of Introduction 4 essence of power, I review relevant literature in Chapter 1, making a special focus on dominant approaches to power in IR, their advantages and limitations. In Chapter 2, I peruse an ongoing scholarly discussion on conceptual problems associated with soft power to identify the lines requiring further research. Finally, in Chapter 3, I present and substantiate my theoretical/analytical framework which addresses the problems discovered in the previous chapter. The second part of the thesis, "Attraction between IR Actors: Case Studies," contains three "most-likely" case studies dealing with three distinct provisions of Chapter 3's framework. In the beginning of this part, there is a methodological section explicating case selection and basic assumptions and techniques used for the case studies. Each case study in chapters 4-6 concentrates on the motives behind the policy of one IR actor (Serbia, Kazakhstan, Germany) towards another one (Russia, the EU and Israel correspondingly), making conclusions about the resultant characteristics of the latter ones' power with respect to the former ones. The analyses in the first place aim to illustrate that what I argue in Chapter 3 is not only theoretically possible, but also can be empirically valid. However, I endeavour to make the critical reviews of existing perspectives on the motives of the actors under research useful not only for exemplifying my theoretical propositions, but also for enhancing our comprehension of the cases themselves. Following Jack Levy's formulations, I treat the case studies as both idiographic theory-guided (2008: 4-6) and hypothesis testing ones (or "theory-confirming" and "interpretative," according to another terminology, see Bennett 2004: 22), an understanding that corresponds to the nature of a case as both "an end in itself" (Levy 2008: 4) as well as "[a] theoretically defined class[] of events" (ibid: 2). Finally, in "Concluding Remarks," I elaborate on theoretical, empirical and policy implications of my work, ponder on its limitations and suggest possible pathways for further research. Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 5 PART ONE. SOFT POWER AND ATTRACTION: ACADEMIC DEBATE ON CONCEPTUAL ISSUES 1. Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey "[P]ower is a word the meaning of which we do not understand." ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, 1867. Introduction In IR scholarship, approaches to power dramatically vary. Robert Gilpin's (1981: 13) often-cited quote refers to this concept as "one of the most troublesome in the field of international relations," which does not appear to be far from the truth, given that in the IR field, as David Baldwin (2013: 273) puts it, "scholars disagree not only with respect to the role of power, but also with respect to the nature of power." Even researchers coming from the same schools of thought do not seem to have much agreement with regard to this concept. Stephen Walt (2002: 222), for instance, acknowledges that "the concept of power is central to realist theory, yet there is still little agreement on how it should be conceived and measured." Similarly, Stefano Guzzini (2013: 226) admits that "constructivism is a meta-theoretical commitment" and hence, "there is not one single conception of power which would be shared by all approaches." Why is there such a profound discordance? Steven Lukes (2007: 83) argues that the reason is threefold. First, similarly to, for instance, the "truth," "power" is a primitive concept, which means that it is complicated to define it with respect to other, less debatable terms. Second, power is an essentially contested concept, which signifies that it appears nearly impossible to define it in a way that would totally exclude the researcher's values and interests. Third, this concept is performative in the sense that the way one conceives of power reflects the way (s)he perceives the reality. However, this all does not mean that the study of power in IR is irreversibly subjective and therefore impossible. One can agree with Baldwin that concepts may be influenced by the theories and approaches in which they are applied, but they "do not derive their meaning completely from such theories" and "cannot be completely determined by those theories" (2016: 60, emphases in original). This Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 6 chapter aims to show various perspectives on the concept of power in IR scholarship, discussing their strengths and limitations. Section 1.1 makes a brief overview of primary issues around this concept in social science literature, selecting those that are of importance for discussion in the subsequent sections and chapters. Section 1.2 analyses the main approaches to power in IR studies. One possible way to perform this task would be to discuss the whole spectrum of the usages of this concept by IR scholars: for example, one review shows that as applied to IR actors, the term "power" can pertain to their identity, goal, means, mechanism, competition or capability (ibid: 102-122). However, what interests me more is to comprehend how the approaches to power are linked to the underlying assumptions of the corresponding theoretical traditions, and explore what possibilities for power analysis those traditions open up and what, conversely, they close down. Guided by this logic, I make the overview on the use of the concept of power by the leading IR schools of thought-namely, classical realism/neorealism, neoliberalism and constructivism-and conclude my main relevant findings in the "Discussion" section. 1.1. Overview on the Concept of Power in Social Sciences 1.1.1. Power: Definitions and Disputable Issues Albeit power is often recognised as one of central concepts in the IR field in particular, it is hardly possible to situate it in that field without providing at least a cursory review on the concept of social power in philosophy and various fields of social sciences-such as sociology, political science, economics and psychology. Since the middle of the last century, thinkers and scientists have traditionally viewed power as embedded in a social relationship in which the agent (A) exerts it with respect to the subject (B). This relationship has such characteristics as scope (the aspect of B's conduct influenced by A), domain (the quantity or significance of other actors exposed to A's influence), weight (the extent to which A is able to alter the likelihood that B will do a certain thing in his/her advantage), bases (the causal mechanism behind the power relationship), means (the tools used by A to make influence attempts) and costs (the amount of resources A has to spend to influence Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 7 B and/or B has to spend to conform to A's requests) (Baldwin 2016: 51-56). The commonality of the relational understanding of power, however, does not imply that all scholars have the same conception of what aspects of social relationship count as power. In fact, as the classification provided by Fiske and Berdahl (2007: 679) shows, various powerful perspectives on power deem it either as influence, or potential influence, or outcome control. The power-as-influence approach defines it in terms of causality, of what power does: in this vein, Herbert Simon (1957: 5) stated that "[f]or the assertion 'A has power over B,' we can substitute the assertion, 'A's behavior causes B's behavior'" and Felix Oppenheim (1981: 33) similarly argued that "to assert that R's action x was influenced by some action y of P is not merely to describe what R did, but also to provide at least a partial explanation of P's conduct. (Why did R do x? Because P influenced him to do x)." Another tradition, considering power as potential influence, seems to have originated in the works of Max Weber (1947: 152) who defined power as "the probability6 that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests." The Weberian account became powerful in the middle of the last century: to exemplify, it was echoed in the writings of Robert Bierstedt (1950: 733) who viewed power as "the ability to employ force, not its actual employment, the ability to apply sanctions, not their actual application" and Dorwin Cartwright (1965: 4) who argued that "[i]f O has the capability of influencing P, we say that O has power over P." Finally, the power-as-outcome-control approach, which is especially strong in social psychology, while still embedding power in a social relationship, leaves influence out of the definition of power and focuses on outcomes or resources instead. Among the adherents of this approach were, for instance, by John Thibaut and Harold Kelley (1959: 101) who stated that "[t]he power of A over B increases with A's ability to affect the quality of outcomes attained by B" and Richard Emerson (1962: 32) who argued that "[t]he power to control or influence the other resides in control over the things he values." 6 A number of scholars (Guzzini 2011c: 564; Baumann & Cramer 2017: 181) argue that "chance" or "ability" and not "probability" would be a more accurate English translation of this word. Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 8 These three perspectives comprise the so-called power-over perspective which presupposes that to talk about power is possible only provided the existence of both A and B. The alternative, so-called power-to perspective treats power in dispositional terms, by virtue of actors' capacities to accomplish a certain goal irrespective of whether this means affecting other actors or not. According to Pamela Pansardi (2011: 522), the most thorough study of power in this fashion has been done by Peter Morriss (2002) who approached power in terms of "an ability to act and to bring about outcomes." However, though this perspective is popular among certain groups of researchers, especially feminist scholars and systems theorists, it is seemingly less widespread among social scientists in general, which is usually explained by pointing to the nature of social sciences that stimulates researchers to be primarily interested in interactions among people, conflicts and inequalities in society (e.g., see Lukes 1974: 30-31, Wartenberg 1990: 5). Incidentally, the two perspectives need not necessarily be seen as conflicting: indeed, some view them as two analytically discernible dimensions of the single concept of social power (Pansardi 2012), while others, contrariwise, consider them as two fundamentally different aspects of life (with power-over having little to do with social life, since it may also relate to inanimate objects) which are linguistically conflated into the term "power" (Wartenberg 1990). Aside from the relational or dispositional nature of power, there is a number of other debatable issues regarding the question of what counts as power. The first one concerns A's intentionality: some of the definitions given above (e.g. Weber's and Russel's) presuppose this and thus, leave unintended effects completely out of the concept of power, while other definitions (e.g. Herbert Simon's) do not rule out the possibility of the unintended exertion of the power of A vis-à-vis B. The second problem regards the role of coercion. A number of Weber-inspired accounts of power treat A's use of punishments as a definitional matter. To illustrate, Harold Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan (1950: 76) term power as "the process of affecting policies of others with the help of (actual or threatened) severe deprivations for nonconformity with the policies intended" and in a similar manner, Peter Blau (1967: 117) defines power as "the ability of persons or groups to impose their own will on others despite resistance through deterrence either in the form of Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 9 withholding regularly supplied rewards or in the form of punishment, inasmuch as the former, as well as the latter, constitute, in effect, a negative sanction." Alternative approaches (e.g. Herbert Simon's and Felix Oppenheim's) do not exclude the possibility of "softer" ways to exert power. Related to this point is another disputable issue: the Weberian tradition treats power as a zero-sum game, i.e., A can either win or lose, and the more power A has, the less of it remains for B. This approach practically excludes the possibilities of collective action, cooperation and any outcome that would be favourable for both A and B. An alternative approach discards such an understanding of power as too narrow: feminist scholar Mary Parker Follett, for instance, puts forward the "conception of power-with, a jointly developed power, a co-active, not a coercive power" (1942: 101, emphases added). In a similar fashion, systems theorist Ervin Laszlo (1989) proposes to view power as a positive-sum relationship, arguing that conceiving of this phenomenon as a negative-sum or zero-sum game does not fully reflect the interdependence of the modern world. Finally, the study of power in social sciences is largely affected by the debate between methodological individualists who explain social phenomena solely by reference to actors and their interactions and holists who treat some higher-level entities or properties such as institutions, norms or cultures as ontologically and causally important. In methodological terms, the former consider only agentic/relational power, while the latter also take account of structural power the degree of consideration of which varies depending on the general theoretical tradition on which a study rests. This debate is sometimes called agent-structure problem, the essence of which is nicely summarised by Alexander Wendt (1987: 337-338): The agent-structure problem has its origins in two truisms about social life which underlie most social scientific inquiry: 1) human beings and their organizations are purposeful actors whose actions help reproduce or transform the society in which they live; and 2) society is made up of social relationships, which structure the interactions between these purposeful actors . . . Thus, the analysis of action invokes an at least implicit understanding of particular social relationships (or "rules of the game") in which the action is set-just as the analysis of social structures invokes some understanding of the actors whose relationships make up the Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 10 structural context. It is then a plausible step to believe that the properties of agents and those of social structures are both relevant to explanations of social behavior. 1.1.2. Debate on the "Faces" of Power Besides the aforesaid ones, there is another aspect that divides scholars over what qualifies as power, which can be phrased as the depth to which B is affected by the power relationship with A. A debate on this topic was launched by Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz who argued in a series of publications (1962, 1963) that the then popular Robert Dahl's conception of power as "A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do" (1957: 202-203) does not fully grasp all aspects of the power relationship. They contended that A can use institutional procedures and rules to modify agenda in a manner that will limit B's range of possible decisions in a way favourable for A. For example, A might intentionally depict a certain option initially preferred by B as illegitimate or hardly realistic to achieve etc, thus impacting on B's final policy choice. Accordingly, Bachrach and Baratz stated that A's power manifests itself not only in getting B to do what (s)he would not otherwise do, but also in hampering him/her from doing something that (s)he would otherwise do and hence, to study a power relationship thoroughly, one must look not only at the decisions that have been taken, but also at those that have not. Bachrach and Baratz called this power dimension the second face of power, contrary to Robert Dahl's first face. A decade later, Steven Lukes (1974) contended that both first and second faces were insufficient, for they comprise only the facet of power in which A affects B's behaviour, while his/her preferences remain unchanged (and, as a rule, conflictual with those of A). The concept of power, he argued instead, should also embrace A's shaping the preferences of B. In other words, in the Lukesian perspective, power is present even if B does something of his/her own accord provided that what (s)he does contradicts his/her "real"/"objective" needs.7 This face of power, which Lukes 7 Baldwin (2015: 217-218) contests Bachrach and Baratz's and Lukes' understandings of the Dahlian conceptualisation of power, arguing that his definition does not necessarily imply that B's preferences remain unchanged as a result of power relations and in fact, it covers all the three faces of power. This point seems fair, which, however, does not mean that the whole discussion on the first face of power loses its topicality, since political scientists frequently tend to explicitly define power Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 11 calls "domination" appears similar to Antonio Gramsci's concept of "hegemony" and is called "hegemonic power" by some scholars (e.g. Johal et. al. 2014). Hence, the Lukesian third face of power differs from the first two faces in that it focuses on the formation of B's beliefs rather than solely his/her behaviour. Moreover, as distinct from the first two faces, the third one does not necessarily presuppose A's intentionality: according to Lukes, what indicates power is B's objective interests being modified in some way by what A does, no matter if that is an intentional or unintentional effect of A's behaviour. However, what all the three faces share in common is presupposing that the power relationship between A and B work in a way which is at odds with B's interests, be they distinct and clearly defined ones or abstract "objective" ones. The postmodernist account of power, most prominently represented in the works on Michael Foucault (1978, 1980), challenges this assumption. His approach, which Peter Digeser (1992) calls the fourth face of power,8 conceives of power as the construction of subjects through social relations. Contrary to the first three faces, the fourth one denies the existence of B's objective interests, presupposing that an actor's role identity, or self-understanding, is socially constructed rather than exogenously given. According to Foucault, power is ubiquitous, it is present in any kind of social practices and interactions, and no actor can escape from being affected by it. Similarly to Lukes, Foucault applies a subject-centered approach to power and therefore, states that it does not necessarily require A's intentionality: his focus is placed on how social interactions affect B's identity and not on A's interests and beliefs. Hence, by considering power as structural rather than agentic/subjective, he explicitly rejects the assumption of the dispositional nature of power. Moreover, the Foucauldian conception of power is positive in the sense that it presupposes that power is productive, for it produces social beings and positive social effects. Nevertheless, Foucault also argues that nobody is biologically predesigned to have one sort of personality and not another; therefore, power solely in terms of its coercive dimension with the above-mentioned definitions of Lasswell and Kaplan as well as Blau aptly illustrating this point. 8 Some researchers (e.g. Akram et. al. 2015) situate Foucault's approach within the third face of power, focusing not on the principally new things it provides, but rather, on how it further specifies and aids in better understanding the Lukesian argument. Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 12 relations invariably imply at least some sort of B's resistance, be it in a reflexive or deliberate form. All in all, the features of power as approached by Foucault are perhaps best summarised by Mark Kelly (2009: 37-38): "1. The impersonality, or subjectlessness, of power, meaning that it is not guided by the will of individual subjects; 2. The relationality of power, meaning that power is always a case of power relations between people, as opposed to a quantum possessed by people; 3. The decenteredness of power, meaning that it is not concentrated on a single individual or class; 4. The multidirectionality of power, meaning that it does not flow only from the more to the less powerful, but rather "comes from below," even if it is nevertheless "nonegalitarian"; 5. The strategic nature of power, meaning that it has a dynamic of its own, is intentional." It is worth mentioning that scholarly criticism in the debate on the faces of power is directed both back and forth, that is, the proponents of a certain face tend not only to regard each previous face as insufficient, but also criticise the subsequent faces as too unspecified and unnecessarily overbroadened, while often concurrently acknowledging a certain usefulness in their contribution to the understanding of social relations. To illustrate, Lukes (2005: 12) admits that Foucault's research on power contains helpful "insights and much valuable research into modern forms of domination" and even confesses that his own initial conception of power as necessarily contrary to B's objective needs was wrong and in fact, power may or may not be detrimental to B's interests. Also, Lukes generally acknowledges the importance of Foucault's idea that "if power is to be effective, those subject to it must be rendered susceptible to its effects" (2007: 96). Nonetheless, he remains critical of Foucault for his allegedly unclear language that has made many scholars interpret A's domination as completely inescapable for B, as a result of which, argues Lukes (ibid: 97), it is no longer possible to distinguish between the exercise of power as indoctrination and the promotion of policies, procedures and arrangements that render people more free . . . to live according to the dictates of their nature and judgement. Yet, it is also worth specifying that the logic of the debate on the faces of power is such that each subsequent face "does not displace the other faces of power, but provides a different level of analysis" (Digeser 1992: 991) which, in fact, seems to Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 13 strengthen the concept of power rather than overbroaden it unnecessarily. Provided that adding new levels to analysis is well justified and reasonably situated within a certain larger theoretical paradigm, this enables scholars to opt for the perspective of power which best suits the goals of their studies. This becomes apparent in the discussion of how IR schools of thought approach power, which follows below. 1.2. IR Scholarship on the Concept of Power: A Part of Social Sciences or Apart from Social Sciences? 1.2.1. (Neo-)Realist Conception: Elements of National Power It will not be an overstatement to say that power analysis lies at the heart of the IR realist tradition. As the founder of IR classical realism Hans Morgenthau stated in the beginning of his Politics Among Nations (1948: 13), "[i]nternational politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power. Whatever the ultimate aims of international politics, power is always the immediate aim." Arguing this, Morgenthau explicitly underlined that power is of an agentic rather than structural nature: the struggle for power, according to him, originates in people's selfish nature, their "lust for power" which, in turn, stems from two fundamental human drives, namely the drive to survive and animus dominandi, the drive to dominate. Morgenthau termed political power as "the mutual relations of control among the holders of public authority and between the latter and the people at large" (ibid), stressing that it refers to "a psychological relation between those who exercise it and those over whom it is exercised" (ibid: 14, emphasis added) and thus must not be confused with military power that implies physical force and hence, has little to do with a psychological relation. Political power, according to Morgenthau, gives one actor "control over certain actions" of another one via influence "over the latter's minds," which "may be exerted through orders, threats, persuasion, or a combination of any of these" (ibid). At first blush, Morgenthau's account of power somewhat resembles the Weberian one, for both deem power in relational terms and highlight its coercive nature. Yet, wholly equating these two seems scarcely fair: despite the definition given in the outset, later in his book Morgenthau discussed a state's power as a combination of certain distinguishable and gaugeable elements that he Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 14 called "elements of national power," categorising them into material (geography, natural resources, industrial capacity, military preparedness) and human ones (population, national character, national morale, quality of government, quality of diplomacy) (ibid: 80-108). In a similar vein, another IR classical realist Edward Carr in his The Twenty Years' Crisis contended that international politics are "in one sense always power politics" (1981: 102). Carr also applied a somewhat elements-of-national-power approach, presenting a nation's power as the sum of its military power, economic power and power over opinion, and explicitly stating that military power is the most important among them, while the other two are significant only in their association with military power (ibid: 102, 141). Moreover, believing that "the ultima ratio of power in international relations is war," Carr considered military power to be such a vital aspect of a nation's foreign policy that it constitutes "not only an instrument, but an end in itself" (ibid: 111). Importantly, even the fact that he singled out "power over opinion" hardly makes his take on power less "aggressive" and rooted in coercion, for under "power over opinion," Carr simply implied political propaganda which he regarded as a "national political weapon" that, again, "cannot be dissociated from military and economic power" (ibid: 141). The "elements-of-national-power" approach permeates the writings of neorealist IR scholars as well. However, in their conception, power elements are solely of material origin: Robert Giplin (1981: 13), for instance, states that "power refers simply to the military, economic, and technological capabilities of states," while John Mearsheimer (2001: 57) defines power as "nothing more than specific assets or material resources that are available to a state." Like classical realists, neorealists tend to regard the military dimension of power as being of utmost importance, while the other dimensions-as significant merely as long as they support the state's military capability. Mearsheimer, for example, argues that the state's power is comprised of its military (based upon the size and strength of its armed forces) and latent power (based on its wealth and population size), where the latter's role is auxiliary, for it simply represents "the socio-economic ingredients that go into building military power" (2001: 55). Moreover, neorealists tend to explicitly reject the relational definition of power. For example, according Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 15 to Kenneth Waltz (1979: 191-192), it "omits consideration of how acts and relations are affected by the structure of action."9 Likewise, Mearsheimer (2001: 57) finds it somewhat analytically useless, stating that "[a]ccording to this logic, power exists only when a state exercises control or influence; and therefore it can be measured only after the outcome is determined." Neorealists generally share classical realists' notion that international relations are a constant struggle for power, however, they consider its origin to lie not in selfish human nature, but in the structure of the international system. Defensive neorealists like Waltz (1979) contend that in the anarchical environment of the international system, where there is no supreme authority, states have to rely on self-help in order to secure their own survival. In order to do it, states must be alert to other states' capabilities, so that they can amass enough power to guarantee their own security. Offensive neorealists like John Mearsheimer (2001) go even further, arguing that a state's ultimate goal is to secure not its minimal survival, but to achieve global hegemony by gathering more power than that of any other IR actor, since this is allegedly the best way to guarantee security. This seemingly puts offensive neorealists close to classical realists in that they treat power as an end rather than means. Neorealists believe that states can and moreover, do measure each other's power to understand the distribution of capabilities in the international system: Waltz, for example, argued that "[s]tates spend a lot of time estimating one another's capabilities, especially their abilities to do harm," highlighting that the elements of those capabilities comprise states' "size of population and territory, resource endowment, economic capability, military strength, political stability and competence" (1979: 131). Power measurement, according to neorealists, makes it possible to rank the states; however, since, as I stated above, they distinctly reject a relational approach to power, they deem such rankings as necessary simply to understand the general dispensation of power rather than predict concrete future 9 Interestingly, later in the same book, Waltz (1979: 192) implicitly resorted to the relational view on power, stating that "an agent is powerful to the extent that he affects others more than they affect him," which, in fact, contradicts the elements-of-national-power approach that Waltz uses elsewhere throughout his writings. This enables a number of scholars to criticise him for inconsistency (e.g. Baldwin 2016: 134-135). Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 16 outcomes. As Waltz put it (ibid: 131), "[r]anking states, however, does not require predicting their success in war or in other endeavors. We need only rank them roughly by capability." Neorealists, hence, pay little attention to the different areas of states' foreign policies: naming force the ultima ratio of politics (Waltz 1979: 113, Mearsheimer 2001: 136) and stating that power politics is always a zero-sum game (Gilpin 1981: 94, Mearsheimer 2001: 34), they appear to implicitly treat the actor's capacity to win a possible war as the main criterion of measuring its overall power. In this light, it is no wonder that neorealists consider power elements as fungible,10 and their fungibility-as contingent on the weight of the state: the stronger the state, the more fungible its power (Waltz 1986: 333). According to them, though power may be hard to measure, it works in IR similarly to money in economics, as a medium of exchange (Mearsheimer 2001: 17, Waltz 1990), making sense only if approached cumulatively. To quote Waltz (1979: 131), "[s]tates are not placed in the top rank because they excel in one way or another" and for this reason, "[t]he economic, military, and other capabilities of nations cannot be sectored and separately weighed." The criticism of the (neo-)realist conception of power is closely tied with the criticism of this tradition's basic assumptions. As nicely summarised by Baldwin (2016: 127-129),11 in the last century, those disagreeing with it mainly pointed to obscure and misleading conceptualisation of power, inattention to power contexts, treatment of power as resources and abundance of strong deterministic statements regarding states' foreign policy goals (in particular, critics questioned if power is really the only foreign policy goal, if states really want to maximise it, and if military power is really the most important). As for more recent criticism, Baldwin (ibid: 10 A good is regarded as fungible "if it is of such a nature as to be freely replaceable by another of like nature or kind without decreasing in value. Convertibility and mutual substitutability are hence forms of fungibility" (Guzzini 2011b: 266). 11 To be precise, he summed up the points that critics raise in relation only to Morgenthau's writings, but each of this points seems to be equally relevant to the realist approach to power in general. The only exception are the so-called "modified," or "neoclassical" realists (Stephen Walt, Randal Schweller, etc) who, while sharing the general realist assumptions about the role of military power and material elements, however, abstain from making strong deterministic statements concerning state preferences, considering leaders' subjective perceptions of their states' interests and other states' power to be a crucial factor that impacts on state behaviour (for details, see Schmidt 2007: 57-60). Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 17 66-68) contests the (neo-)realist view of politics as a zero-sum game: drawing on Thomas Schelling's works on strategy, he argues that though situations of pure conflict happen in real life, they are extremely rare and in fact, even wars need not be treated as a zero-sum activity. Gallarotti (2011: 27) disputes neorealists' preoccupation with material resources which, according to him, stems from their-highly questionable-Hobbesian understanding of anarchy. Put in a nutshell, in a situation where actors do not trust each other and everyone awaits a possible aggression from other actors, material resources are more reliable to envisage protection, be it offensive or defensive by nature. Joseph (2011: 638) criticises the neorealist conception of agents and structures as insufficient arguing that limiting the former to rational nation-states and the latter to anarchical international system that impacts on rational nation-states, forcing them to act in a certain manner, "makes it almost impossible to develop a meaningful dialogue with those supporting a notion of globalization, given that the two positions have very different conceptions of international structure and its most relevant agents." Guzzini (1998: 136-137) contests treating power as money, arguing that while money for economists serves as a standardised criterion of wealth, political actors do not such a standard measure and hence, power resources should always be considered only in linkage to particular goals. In a similar vein, Guzzini disputes the neorealist statement that fungibility of power resources increases as their amount increases: as he puts it (ibid: 137; for a similar argument, see Baldwin 2016: 71-72), [i]f power is so highly fungible, that it can be assumed to be used in different scopes, then one does not need the variety-definition: economic capabilities can be used for producing political, ethical and other outcomes. If one assumes a great variety of capabilities, one implicitly assumes that the strong state is strong not because it has a lot of overall power, but because it possesses different capabilities in distinctive domains. As for the elements-of-national-power approach in general,12 even its critics tend to admit that it can be analytically useful for forecasting the outcomes of 12 Notably, the elements-of-national-power approach may be confused with the above-mentioned "power-to" approach, for they both focus on the actor that wields power and presuppose the dispositional rather than relational nature of power. However, while the "power-to" approach treats power as an actor's capacity to achieve a certain outcome, the elements-of-national-power approach disregards outcomes and treats power resources as though they are power itself. Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 18 certain events and comparing the certain abilities of IR actors. Joseph Nye (2011a: 12), for instance, acknowledges that approaching power as a possession of resources may be logical, for example, in the military context, stating that "[i]n general, a country that is well endowed with power resources is more likely to affect a weaker country and be less dependent upon an optimal strategy than vice versa." However, as presented by neorealists, this approach is noted for engendering calculation problems: Schmidt (2007: 54), for instance, points to the fact that while neorealists single out certain elements of national power, they (in particular, Waltz) are often unclear about the concrete criteria of their measurement as well as the way they can be summarised in one score. 13 Furthermore, this approach appears to oversimplify such a complex phenomenon as power and hence, is fraught with a number of problems carefully listed by Hart (1976: 290): "1) it is not always certain that actors will be able to use resources which are normally under their control; 2) it is not always clear what types of resources should be included in a general measure of power, and one suspects that for different types of conflicts different combinations of resources will be needed to explain the outcomes of conflicts; 3) some types of resources, such a the will to use force, are extremely difficult to measure; 4) the focus on national power precludes the consideration of the role of non-state actors in determining the outcome of conflicts; and 5) it is not clear how one is to deal with interdependence, coalitions, and collective action." Finally, as Baldwin notes (2013: 277; 2016: 69-70), although this approach may succeed in estimating an actor's potential power, it fails to consider the contextual nature of power elements (specification of domain and scope), A's skills and motivation as well as A's and B's intentions. 1.2.2. Neoliberal Conception: Interdependence and Economic Wealth14 It is noteworthy that while the concept of power is central to realist thinking, it does 13 While preoccupation with the possibility to measure national power quantitatively is characteristic especially of IR neorealists, in fact, social scientists have long been concerned with it. Hönn's (2011: 74-230) comprehensive literature review on this topic contains 67 (!) various mathematical formulas designed to measure national power, the earliest of which dates back to 1741. Some of those formulas comprehend merely material elements while others are more inclusive. 14 This section does not contain any mention of the soft power concept, for it is discussed later in Chapter 2. Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 19 not enjoy an equal role in other IR paradigms: in fact, some schools of thought contribute relatively little, if anything, to power analysis and thus, their omittance will barely harm this study. For this reason, this section limits the discussion to IR neoliberal institutionalist scholars, leaving out so-called commercial liberals, associating free trade and peace, republican liberals, associating democracy and peace, and sociological liberals, associating transnational interactions and international integration (Baldwin 1993: 4). First of all, neoliberal scholars regard power in terms of social relationships, which, compared to the (neo-)realist approach, more closely reflects how power is treated in other fields of social sciences.15 Keohane and Nye, for instance, use the Dahlian definition of power as "the ability of an actor to get others to do something they otherwise would not do," adding that the action should be performed "at an acceptable cost to the actor" (1977|2012: 10). Likewise, Susan Strange (1996: 17) terms power as "the ability of a person or group of persons so to affect outcomes that their preferences take precedence over the preferences of others." The relational approach logically follows that power is not as measurable and its resources are not as fungible as neorealists argue: in this respect, Keohane (1986: 184-185) points to the fact that estimating the overall power of an actor appears somewhat useless, since a resource useful in one policy area may be of less or no use in another. Therefore, neoliberals propose to do power analysis within single "issue-areas," where it is possible to more objectively estimate the capacities of actors (Keohane & Nye 2012). Second, neoliberals pay a closer attention to the role of structures in a power relationship. While neorealists limit structures merely to the international system, Keohane and Nye (2012: 10) argue that asymmetries in dependence serve as a power resource for the less contingent actor of the power relationship. Arguing this, they construct an ideal-type situation called "complex interdependence" that characterises the world in which actors are inextricably linked to one another; the two theorists do not argue that it perfectly explains the world already now, but they 15 In fairness to the (neo-)realist paradigm, the dispositional approach to power has been advocated by best-known, but still not all (neo-)realist scholars: Baldwin (2016: 128) names Stephen Jones, Denis Sullivan as well as Harold and Margaret Sprouts as the IR students who criticised Morgenthau's elements of national power, arguing in favour of the relational approach. Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 20 believe it shows the direction in which the world is developing (ibid: xxxiv). One implication of the growing interdependence 16 is that it enables IR actors to manipulate the IR structures which have emerged from interdependence (e.g. international institutions). Such structures may benefit or, on the contrary, restrict IR actors' behaviour depending if their relative power capabilities are greater or smaller than their position in IR institutions.17 To exemplify, established in the wake of the WWII, the UN Security Council still reflects the distribution of capacities existent at that time, which engenders imbalances in the current IR system: as a result, a number of currently strong countries, such as Germany and Japan, as well as rising powers, such as Brazil and India, do not have permanent seats in the UN Security Council, while the UK, the relative capacities of which have declined since 1945, enjoys a permanent seat there (Strange 1996). Another corollary of interdependence is that, albeit states remain main IR actors, power relationships take place not only between states, but also interstate organisations as well as NGOs, transnational corporations, sub-national and regional authorities as long as they act internationally (Keohane 1989). Neoliberals argue that power relations not only in economic and environmental, but also even in military sphere, are not necessarily zero-sum: as Keohane & Nye (2012: 9) put it, "military allies actively seek interdependence to provide enhanced security for all." Sharing with neorealism such basic premises as the primary importance of the state in IR, actors' rationality and the anarchy of the international system, neoliberals contend that prospects for cooperation, even under anarchy, are higher than neorealists would have us think: states, according to them, are preoccupied with their absolute rather than relative gains in power (that is, asking "what will gain me the most?" rather than "who will gain more?"), which allows for mutual benefits arising out of cooperation (ibid: 8-9). Unlike (neo-)realists who tend to make firm assumptions regarding states' foreign policy objectives and their priority, neoliberals, first, shift their attention from pure security to the multiplicity 16 Importantly, it is fair to speak of interdependence only when there are "reciprocal (although not necessarily symmetrical) costly effects of transactions"; thus it should be distinguished from mere interconnectedness which happens "when interactions do not have significant costly effects" (Keohane & Nye 2012: 8). 17 Putting this point in the discussion of the faces of power, for IR actors, interdependence raises the possibilities to exercise the second face of power and/or have it exercised over them. Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 21 of states' foreign policy goals and second, contend that whether states always attempt to maximise their power and whether security is always states' highest priority should be addressed as empirical questions in each particular context (Keohane & Nye 2012). To challenge the (neo-)realist emphasis on military force, first, they cite examples of the situations where military force can hardly be helpful, such as Canadian-US and Australian-US relations and second, they build the above-mentioned "ideal type" of IR system named "complex interdependence" where military force would be of minor significance (ibid: 19-31). Reasoning this way, neoliberals conclude that interdependence considerably impedes the use of force, for coercive behaviour simply becomes irrational in the interdependent world. Rosecrance (1986) argues that rising economic interdependence has been coupled with a respective decrease in the worth of territorial conquests, since nowadays the benefits of economic cooperation and trade among states are significantly higher than those of military rivalry and control over territories. Traditionally, states used to regard territories as increasing economic wealth; however, in the contemporary world, where the key elements of a state's wealth lie in its share of the international market in value-added services and goods, new territories do not necessarily aid states in enhancing their economic situation. What is more, neoliberals argue that nowadays states are not as independent and self-sufficient as they historically were: first, aggressive behaviour presently involves a risk that other states may impose economic sanctions and second, a rational state would not threaten its trade partners whose markets and investments it needs for its own growth. This all is underpinned by the fact that wars over territories in the nuclear age are too risky and expensive for rogue states; it is both more attractive and potentially beneficial to try to increase wealth via trade and foreign investments. Except for neorealists who, for obvious reasons, completely disagree with neoliberals over the impact of interdependence (see Grieco 1988, Waltz 1986 etc), other critics generally view the neoliberal approach as an improvement compared to neorealist ideas, yet, often considering it as insufficient for various reasons. Baldwin (2016: 162-263), for instance, contends that Keohane and Nye successfully demonstrated that power resources are of a limited fungibility; however, he labels Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 22 their perspective on military power as "muted" and "overly cautious." Whereas Keohane and Nye contend that military relations "need not be zero-sum" (2012: 9, emphasis added), Baldwin argues that they are never zero-sum. While Keohane and Nye maintain that "military power dominates economic power in the sense that economic means alone are likely to be ineffective against the serious use of military force" (ibid: 14), Baldwin (2016: 180-181) argues that this statement does not factor in the context and the variety of spheres in which power relationship may take place. Similarly, Vyas (2011) praises neoliberals for their treatment of structural and relational power, but criticises them for not integrating actors' identities and ideas in their theory: as a result, he argues, the neoliberal approach may successfully explain the formation of integration groups, but fails to unfold why ASEAN, NAFTA and Mercosur do not deepen their integration like the EU has done. The ideational aspects of power relationships are well accounted for in the constructivist approach described below. 1.2.3. Constructivist Conception: Towards Multidimensionality Hurd (2008) singles out four main distinctive features of constructivism. First, actors' knowledge is not objective, but socially constructed. "Constructed" means that "people act toward objects, including other actors, on the basis of the meanings that the objects have for them" (Wendt 1992: 396-397); therefore, all social relations rest on the meanings that constitute them, and those meanings change over time (though over short periods they may remain comparatively stable). "Socially" means that knowledge is constructed intersubjectively, through language which is neither totally objective, nor completely subjective-put differently, it does not exist irrespective of human minds, but at the same time, it is always greater than how it is used by single individuals (Guzzini 2011a: 138). Second, unlike neoliberals and neorealists who assume that IR actors are rational with fixed interests, constructivists argue that actors' interests are socially formed and depend on actors' identities, that is, "relatively stable, role-specific understandings and expectations about self" (Wendt 1992: 397), which are molded and altered via interaction with other actors. Third, agents (actors) and structures Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 23 (norms, institutions, shared meanings) are mutually constitutive, meaning that, on the one hand, agents' actions are conducive to making new structures, on the other, structures also affect, define and socialise actors. Finally, the IR system is anarchical, i.e., "not organized through hierarchical structures of authority and command" (Hurd 2008: 304), which, however, does not mean that states always view one another as rivals, as neoreliasts assume. Rather, depending on their identities, states' perceptions of one another may vary from friends to enemies. As this description manifests, constructivism is not a single theory, but rather, as Guzzini (2013: 226) puts it, "a meta-theoretical commitment," and therefore, "there is not one single conception of power which would be shared by all approaches." Moreover, due to the fact that constructivists place themselves in opposition to realism, the very word "power," associated with IR realist accounts, does not occupy such a central place in constructivist studies (Barnett & Duvall 2005: 40-41). However, Guzzini singles out several basic premises that are common for all constructivist interpretations of power (2011a: 138-141). First, power exists only in a social relation and can be analysed only given the scope and domain of that relation. Second, objects can be deemed as power resources only given a respective social context and actors' respective understanding of those objects; therefore, constructivists "would reject any power index based on some resource aggregate as basically meaningless" (2011a: 141). Third, power should be viewed not in causal terms, but as a part of constitutive relations, thus it is impersonal and not necessarily intentional, has both agentic and structural dimensions (2013: 226). Fourth, power relationship has performative aspects in the sense that discursive practices affect actors' identities and self-understandings. This conception of power, according to Guzzini, has a number of methodological implications. First of all, constructivism turns out to be chiefly interested not in formal power, but rather in its intersubjective practice, in "what 'authorizes,' 'legitimates' or 'empowers'" (2011a: 140). Furthermore, a constructivist analysis of power focuses on the formation of actors' identity and interests in the context of shared meanings and understandings; hence, a power analysis cannot simply assume that actors have certain interests-it should also explain how those interests are shaped. Moreover, constructivists deem identity Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 24 not only as the basis for interests formation, but also as a factor that directly determines actors' actions, what Guzzini calls "power politics of identity" (ibid). Finally-and the most importantly-power relationship should be studied in terms of outcomes, which allows solving the neorealist "paradox of unrealised power," when an actor possessing many power resources turns out to be unable to achieve the desired outcome (2011c: 565). The power-as-outcomes perspective presupposes that a power relationship is studied from the perspective of B and takes account of B's values, skills and motivation.18 More precisely (2011c: 564), by concentrating on the recipient of power exercises, relational approaches also stress the 'latent power' of actors ('having power') who do not necessarily need to act ('exercising power')-all it takes is that the recipients adjust their behaviour in pre-empting real or even imagined (negative) sanctions, whether or not the power wielder is even aware of this in every case. The causal link from sanctions to the altered behaviour of the recipient is upheld, but the explanation is shifted from the recipient of power to its wielder, not the other way round. These constructivist assumptions make it possible to consider all the four faces in the analysis of power relations. It is best seen in the article by Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall's "Power in International Politics" (2005), where they conceptualise power as "the production, in and through social relations, of effects that shape the capacities of actors to determine their circumstances and fate" (ibid: 42). They construct a fourfold taxonomy of power (see Table 1) depending on what it works through (interactions of specific actors or social relations of constitution) and its relational specificity (direct or diffuse). Considering this, Barnett and Duvall end up with four types of power which they call compulsory, institutional, productive and structural. Compulsory power is present whenever A is in a position to directly shape the behaviour of B, for example, as a result of an order or command. Institutional power implies A's indirect control over B through the rules, procedures and settings of some formal 18 Those are not the only advantages of studying power in terns of outcomes. In 1976, long before constructivism emerged as an IR paradigm, Jeffrey Hart (1976: 303) posited that "[t]he control over events and outcomes emerges as the best approach for the measurement of power in contemporary international politics, because: 1) it is the only approach that takes into account the possibility of interdependence among actors and of collective action; 2) it is more general than other approaches; and 3) it produces a type of analysis which has both descriptive and normative advantages over the types of analysis which are associated with the other approaches." Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 25 or informal institutions. Structural power is embedded in social structures, in the positions of actors that determine their roles and, in turn, actions (for instance, a master and a slave, a teacher and a student etc). As distinct from institutional power, which is mostly about placing constraints on actions, structural power focuses more on the capabilities that actors have due to occupying a certain social position. Finally, productive power is the constitution of social beings via systems of knowledge and discursive practices in general. As the authors admit themselves (ibid: 43), in the order that they are presented, these four types of power somewhat resemble, though do not completely coincide with, the first, second, third and fourth faces of power respectively, which allows Guzzini (2013: 217) to quite fairly refer to their approach as "Lukes-plus-Foucault." Relational specificity Direct Diffuse Power works through Interactions of specific actors Compulsory Institutional Social relations of constitution Structural Productive Table 1. Taxonomy of Power. Source: Barnett & Duvall 2005: 48. Whilst many would possibly regard this understanding of power as excessively broad, there are scholars who, contrariwise, consider it too narrow. Baldwin (2016: 148-153), for instance, contests Barnett and Duvall's approach, first, for explicitly excluding persuasion and processes of collective choice from power relations (see Barnett & Duvall 2005: 42) and second, for allegedly conceiving of power as necessarily detrimental to B's interests. Regarding the former, removing from analysis voluntary collective choice and persuasion as such logically follows from the subject-centered perspective on power: indeed, it does not seem necessary to take them into consideration if B's choice is absolutely independent of A and/or A's attempts to persuade have no behavioural effect on B. Consequently, when a study's goals necessitate approaching power through B's eyes, excluding them from analysis seems, in fact, to be an advantage rather than a drawback. However, the context of IR, presupposing a limited number of actors and their close familiarity with one another, almost excludes the possibility of an actor's choice being completely autonomous from other actors and in reality, a vast majority of B's Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 26 actions that are favourable to A would fall at least in the category of productive power. As for the second critical point, on close inspection, it apparently concerns not the constructivist approach per se, nor even the taxonomy provided in the article, but, rather, its interpretation by the authors. Indeed, Barnett and Duvall state that their conception of power "better reflects conventional understandings insofar as most scholars interested in power are concerned not simply with how effects are produced, but rather with how these effects work to the advantage of some and the disadvantage of others" (ibid: 42). Yet, by saying this, they hardly seem to postulate that a power relationship with A necessarily leaves B worse off; rather, they appear to imply that their approach is especially useful for the scholars concentrating on how power functions to the prejudice of B. In fact, neither Guzzini's above-cited constructivist principles of power analysis, nor Barnett and Duvall's taxonomy in particular as such automatically presupposes an injurious effect of power on the subject. Another point of criticism addresses the consideration of identity as a level of power analysis: Baldwin (2016: 150), for instance, argues-quite fairly-that "identity" is a vague term that has multiple understandings, then criticises Barnett and Duvall for not providing the definition of identity in their article, after which he dismisses the constructivist conception of power on the following grounds (ibid: 150-151, emphasis in original): The point is that it is quite common in everyday language to talk about influence in terms of A causing a change in B's identity. The idea that parents should do things to make their children grow into better adults is often heard. The phrase 'Mary is a different person' does not mean what it seems to say. It means that her behavior, attitude, beliefs, values, feelings, and/or predispositions have changed so radically that it is as if she is a different person. This criticism can be interpreted twofold. If it is directed at the lack of the definition of identity in this particular paper, then strictly speaking, Baldwin is right in that every author should clearly define the concepts (s)he applies. Yet, in this very case, the criticism appears a bit odd given that though the contexts, in which the term "identity" is used in IR, vary indeed, all constructivist studies-at least those that have crossed my attention-rest on Wendt's above-mentioned Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 27 definition of identity as an actor's "role-specific understanding of self."19 However, if-what is closer to my understanding-Baldwin's criticism is ontological and consists in rejecting a causal link between the actor's self-understanding and his/her behaviour, then it can be addressed by pointing to a whole bunch of psychoanalytical and social psychological studies which argue the opposite (see section 3.3.3). Finally, another sort of criticism comes from neoliberal scholars who point to how constructivists treat structures in power analysis. While generally admitting that structural forces constitute a part of power relations, neoliberals, nevertheless, argue that placing an emphasis on them makes power analysis too abstract and all-inclusive, "neither specifically contextual nor situational" (Gallarotti 2011: 32). However, it seems that the real problem here is that a close focus on structures does not suit the purposes of IR research as deemed by neoliberals: as Nye (2011a: 16) puts it, "[f]or some purposes this can be fruitful, but it is less useful for understanding the policy options that leaders confront." Consequently, everything depends, in fact, on the research question under investigation: what is useless for Nye's policy-oriented agent-centered perspective may be helpful for those interested in the underlying processes that shape B's motives and interests, let alone that a better theoretical understanding of structural power may eventually offer a useful insight to policy practitioners as well. Discussion This chapter has outlined the key issues that surround power analysis in social sciences and provided an overview of how most prominent IR schools of thought-namely, (neo-)realism, neoliberalism and constructivism-conceive of power. Remarkably, rather than simply be an introductory part of symbolic importance, this chapter serves a number of practical purposes in further discussion. First, it facilitates locating the key concept of this study-soft power-in the overall spectrum of approaches to power, which is necessary so as to make 19 This is not only my perception. For example, in her recent review on this concept in IR literature, Urrestarazu (2015: 131-133) singles out three constructivist perspectives on identity, which vary depending on whether they flow from social psychology, discourse analysis or sociological institutionalism, however, all three of them are consistent with Wendt's general definition. Concept of Power in IR Theory: A Brief Survey 28 sense of the origin and evolution of the concept, explain its scope, characterise it with the use of relevant terminology and understand the arguments made by its supporters and critics. Second, the chapter has provided a utilitarian toolset for analysing power through the prism of the three IR paradigms, which will also be of use in the subsequent chapters. In doing so, the descriptions I have given are generally in accord with the recommendation of Baldwin (2016: 78) who argues that "[i]deally, any attempt to create an operational measure of power should begin with the following steps: 1. Clear specification of the concept of power to be measured. 2. Statement of the proposed operational measure. 3. Reasons why this measure is preferable to alternative measures. 4. Acknowledgement of the ways in which the operational measure is deficient, that is, the aspect of the concept that it fails to capture." In general, the discussion of this chapter has exhibited that the right definition of and approach to power do not exist; everyone is enabled to study power in the way that suits the goals of his/her study and moreover, as Nye (2011a: 10) argues, the selection of an approach to power frequently mirrors the researcher's values and interests. Yet, one practical conclusion still can be drawn: in most academic contexts, the relational approach to power appears more preferable to the dispositional approach. Estimating elements of national power to understand an actor's potential may be of use to policy analysts and practitioners for forecasting purposes, while academic researchers usually focus on actual interactions and actual influence, though what exactly about those interactions counts as power remains highly contingent on a research question under consideration. Keeping this in mind, I proceed to the discussion of soft power. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 29 2. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power "Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment." ― Mahatma Gandhi. Introduction In the late 1980s-early 1990s, a so-called declinist movement emerged in the US foreign policy community. Its supporters were arguing that by that period, US foreign policy had overstretched beyond its resources, requiring excessive costs, a situation which they were expecting to engender the strengthening of a domestic movement against foreign policy expenditures that would eventually sap the country's power and enfeeble its international position. One of those who made a case against declinists was the neoliberal scholar Joseph Nye, who in a series of publications (1990a, 1990b) contended that IR at that period were undergoing a "diffusion of power," which was caused by "economic interdependence, transnational actors, nationalism in weak states, the spread of technology, and changing political issues" (1990a: 160). The diffusion of power, he argued, was diminishing the significance of traditional forms of power-military and economic-and raised the importance of another form of power, which he called "soft power." The term immediately became widespread among policy practitioners, so Nye decided to develop a more academic account of soft power (see Nye 2004). That account, however, was received very critically in the scholarly community with reflections ranging from suggestions to totally dismiss the concept (these were usually coming from realists, e.g. Layne 2010) to more modest ones which agreed with the basic idea of soft power, but criticised Nye's tone of presentation for being allegedly too West-centric in general (e.g. Fan 2008) or US-centric in particular (e.g. Knutsen 2007). Some scholars focused more deeply not on Nye's examples and case studies, but on the concept itself, its value and operability, thus giving more constructive criticism of Nye's account (e.g. Bially Mattern 2005, Lock 2010), which eventually encouraged Nye to clarify and further advance his concept (see Nye Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 30 2007, 2008b, 2010, 2011a, 2011b). The scholar that seems to most closely share Nye's conceptualisation of soft power and the logic behind it is Giulio Gallarotti who argues in a series of publications (2010, 2011) that in the contemporary globalising world, the growth of democracy and international organisations has promoted a culture of cooperation, which, coupled with the fact that use of force and coercion nowadays seems practically impossible due to the high possibility of a nuclear war, raises the importance of soft power in international relations (2011: 37-39). Gallarotti's account of soft power generally appears to be in line with the Nyeian neoliberal fashion; moreover, whilst Nye's perspective is rather policy-oriented and therefore, mainly present in non-academic publications, Gallarotti has advanced a more academic account of soft power, partly clarifying Nyeian points and partly amplifying them. This chapter presents and critically reviews academic debates around the conceptual/theoretical aspects of soft power, touching, where relevant, upon the issues of its empirical applicability. Section 2.1 defines soft power and situates it within broader relevant academic debates. Section 2.2 compares soft power with its opposite, hard power, particularly focusing on the problem of their clear delimitation. Section 2.3 elaborates on attraction, the mechanism through which soft power operates; here, special consideration is given to the difficulties associated with the agent-centered approach to attraction, especially the problem of soft power resources. Section 2.4 discusses the agent-structure problem in the study of attraction. Section 2.5 covers the issue of power bases behind the process of attraction, noting the lack of a psychological approach to this problem in the literature on soft power. Each section is commenced by the presentation of neoliberals' ideas on the topic under analysis followed by the analytical examination of the critical points raised by other scholars. 20 Discussion summarises the academic debate around the concept, focusing on those shortcomings that have been generally overcome and those which are still in need of further clarification. 20 Leaping ahead, however, it is worth mentioning that despite my hard efforts to eschew them, the sections of this chapter contain certain overlaps, since the topics they cover are mutually intertwined. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 31 2.1. Definition, Its Evolution and the Concept's Place Among Related Concepts As Nye developed his ideas about soft power, the concept's definition was changing in two ways. First, it was getting increasingly formal and specific as Nye's interest gradually shifted from solely US foreign policy to the academic debate on social power. Second, the definition's specification was also accompanied by its extension. Initially, Nye termed soft power as what occurs "when one country gets other countries to want what it wants... in contrast with the hard or command power of ordering others to do what it wants" (1990a: 166, emphasis in original). In his 2004 book, where he accentuated the distinctiveness of soft power as collated with military and economic power, he defined it as "the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments" (2004: x). Later, however, under some criticism that followed, Nye had to admit that military and economic power may also produce attraction and therefore, he re-conceptualised soft power as "the ability to affect others to obtain preferred outcomes by the co-optive means of framing the agenda, persuasion, and positive attraction" (2011a: 19). There is a certain confusion as to the relationship between the four faces of power and soft power. Originally, Nye explicitly equated soft power with the second face (2004: 5); however, that was later contested by Baldwin (2013: 289) who stated that Nye's concept is actually closer to Lukes' third face, since both aim to change B's preferences. In his later publications, Nye stated that soft power encompasses the second and third faces of power (Nye 2011b: 16). On the one hand, this explanation seems fair: indeed, as his latest definition shows, soft power embraces both agenda-setting and attraction, somewhat corresponding to the second and third faces. At the same time, Lukes' third face appears broader than what Nye's soft power allows including: Nye clearly states that he considers power in terms of A's intentions to get preferred outcomes and hence, is not interested in the non-intended effects (2011b: 7) which, in Lukes' conception, qualify as A's power (see Section 1.1.2). The reason behind, argues Nye (2011a: 21-22), is that his approach is policy-oriented, thanks to which his interest lies in actions themselves, while Lukes' concern is in actors' false consciousness. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 32 Also, some authors (Baldwin 2013: 276, Gallarotti 2011: 29-30) find Nye's vision of soft power to resemble not only Lukes' third face, but also Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony, arguing that the common idea behind all the three concepts is that "influence can be acquired if an actor is able to mold the preferences and interests of other actors so as to converge closer to its own preferences and interests" (Gallarotti 2011: 29). Nevertheless, this does not seem to mean that all three of them thoroughly coincide. Gallarotti, for example, argues that the Gramscian hegemony and the third face of power presuppose a much more considerable conflict of interests between A and B compared to the notion of soft power. According to him, hegemony in IR is "exerted through the venues of institutions that are portrayed as legitimate guarantors of collective interests in world politics, but in fact are oriented around the interests and preferences of dominant nations" (ibid). In turn, Lukes' third face rests upon the assumption of false consciousness which implies that "the interests of subordinate nations have not really merged toward the interests of dominant nations, but that only a concerted effort to sell a universal ideology has inculcated a false sense of interests onto subordinate nations" (ibid: 30). Unlike these two concepts, soft power does not presuppose a strong conflict of interests: Nye's vision presupposes that the change of B's preferences by A can be beneficial for B. Accordingly, it seems fair to agree with Zahran and Ramos (2010: 23-24) that Nye's account is generally more "peaceful": while Gramsci conceives of coercion and consent as complementary to one another, in Nye's vision, they are opposite to one another, as his 2004 definition explicitly shows. Concurrently, the fact that soft power implies much less conflict of interest than the third face of power must not be interpreted as though it is identical to Foucault's fourth face. While Foucault can be read differently as to whether actors can identify their objective interests other than those that are imposed on them in the course of subjectification, the neoliberal logic of soft power "embraces the idea that nations can ascertain their objective interests and that there are abundant possibilities of harmony among those interests" (Gallarotti 2011: 31-32). In addition, whereas the fourth face deems power as something ubiquitous, going through all social relations, soft power is more concrete, referring to "the relationship between the actions and policy orientations of Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 33 particular nations on the one hand and the responses to these actions and orientations by other nations on the other hand" (ibid: 32). Kearn (2011: 76) finds another similarity between soft power and hegemony in that, similarly to hegemony, soft power is most pertinent "when considering the strategy and behavior of the leading power . . . in a relatively hierarchical international system." This point is understandable, since in his writings, Nye indeed devotes most attention to big influential powers like the US. Yet, Kearn's remark seems inaccurate in general, for Nye also states that many instruments of soft power are available to small states, citing Norway as an example (for details, see Nye 2008b: 104). These comparisons show that while some critics question the originality of soft power, arguing that other scholars put forward similar notions before Nye (Baldwin 2013: 289; Fan 2008: 152),21 this criticism seems fair only to a limited extent: while the general idea behind soft power contains little new, the concept of soft power is quite original, for it does not completely coincide with any similar ones. In her profound conceptual analysis of soft power, Eggereide (2012: 83-88) shows that this concept is possible, since it is in accord with surrounding concepts and the ordinary usage of "power", and helpful, since it draws attention to the aspects that may otherwise be neglected in power analysis. Its main problem, however, is that it is hard to clearly operationalise (ibid: 97-98), which allows many to speak of "conceptual stretching" of soft power (Rothman 2011: 50), tag it as a "power of confusion" (Fan 2008), "redundant and empty catch-all term" (Rawnsley 2016: 19) and "empty signifier . . . [which] asserts - more than [] elaborates-how it can be a force in world politics" (Hayden 2017: 332). Since much of this problem lies in the relationship between soft power and its opposite, hard power, this is the next topic that I discuss. 2.2. Soft, Hard and Smart Power Understanding how soft power works in the first place necessitates its 21 Oddly, Fan also argues that Nye simply recapitulated and popularised what other IR scholars, such as Hans Morgenthau, Klaus Knorr, Edward Carr and Ray Cline, said before him (2008: 149). This seems entirely wrong: even a brief glance at the Nyeian definitions of soft power suffices to see a big difference between his concept and the realist conception of power. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 34 disentanglement from its innate corollary, hard power. Yet, here comes the first problem: throughout his writings, Nye approaches the soft/hard power dichotomy in three different ways. Further, although Nye means to clearly distinguish between the two kinds of power, saying that "soft power does not depend on hard power" (2004: 9), neither of those three ways appears to provide a well-marked distinction between them. First, in some cases, Nye speaks of soft and hard power from the viewpoint of resources: such manifests itself, for instance, when he subdivides power into military, economic and soft (2004: xi),22 from which one can logically deduce that hard power is what is produced by military and economic resources, whilst soft power is everything else. This logic, nonetheless, creates a certain confusion given that all the three definitions of soft power conceptualise it in behavioural terms: it is simply not possible to define two parts of a whole from the perspective of resources and the remaining part in terms of behaviour. Yet, the resource-oriented logic appears to be exactly how the concept of soft power came to Nye's mind. Once, for example, he argued (2008a: ix): I developed the concept of soft power in 1989 when I was writing a book rebutting the-then conventional wisdom about the decline of American power. After examining American economic and military power, I found that something was still missing-the ability of the United States to attract others and thus increase the probability of obtaining the outcomes it wanted. Second, sometimes he approaches the dichotomy in terms of A's behaviour, focusing on the kind of conduct A uses to affect B. This becomes apparent in the metaphors to which he resorts- e.g. "[h]ard power is push, soft power is pull" (2011b: 20)-as well as a more formal explanation stating that hard power embraces "the use of force, payment, and some agenda-setting based on them," while soft power embraces "agenda-setting that is regarded as legitimate by the target, positive attraction, and persuasion" (ibid). 22 This formulation may bear resemblance with Edward Carr's above-mentioned classification of power into military, economic and power over opinion. However, equating them is inaccurate, for by "power over opinion," Carr implied propaganda, whereas Nye (2008b: 101), on the contrary, highlights that propaganda undermines credibility and for this reason is detrimental to soft power. In this light, it is somewhat odd that Nye himself cites Carr in support of the statement that "only a truncated and impoverished version of realism ignores soft power. Traditional realists did not" (2011b: 82). Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 35 Table 2. Hard and Soft Power. Source: Nye 2004: 8. Table 2 shows that for Nye, power may be viewed as a continuum of A's behaviours and regarded as soft when they are of co-optive and hard if of coercive nature. This approach to the two forms of power is the one that Nye seemingly promotes most: in his latest writings, Nye states that resources are not central to the understanding of the form of power we are dealing with, since, first, command power may generate resources that are capable of creating soft power and the other way round (2010: 216, 2011b: 21) and second, military and economic means can also produce soft power if they are used for co-optation and not coercion (2011b: 25-80). Whereas in 2004, Nye argued that the difference between hard and soft power lies "both in the nature of the behavior and in the tangibility of the resource" (2004: 7, emphasis added), later he contended that his 2004 formulation had aimed to draw special attention to the importance of non-material resources of power and in fact, he had never meant that (in-)tangibility of power resources should be deemed as a necessary condition for differentiating between the two types of power (2010: 216). Incidentally, Gallarotti (2011: 35) has a similar view, however, concentrating not on the nature of resources, but on whether A uses them in a liberal manner with regard to B. As he notes (ibid), the real differentiation of power is in the context of its use. In order to affect soft power, the context of actions (whether tangible or intangible) must be a manifestation of politically liberal principles . . .. In this vein, hard power itself can be used in a manner that engenders the respect and admiration of other nations if it manifests itself in actions consistent with these Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 36 principles (e.g., peace-keeping, protecting against aggression or genocide, or providing economic aid on terms favorable to recipient nations). Third, at times Nye distinguishes between hard and soft power in terms of the subject's preferences. For instance, his conceptualisation of hard power as "the ability to get others to act in ways that are contrary to their initial preferences and strategies" (2011b: 11) seems to equate hard power to the first face, which logically follows that soft power, accordingly, embraces the second and third faces. This approach is more peculiar to his latest writings, where he devotes more attention to B, albeit even in those writings, due to his policy-oriented perspective, Nye appears to be more interested in A's policies than B's preferences. Finally, sometimes Nye mixes up all the three perspectives. For example, in one article, he terms hard power as "the ability to use the carrots and sticks of economic and military might to make others follow your will" (Nye 2003). All in all, this overview shows that in different cases, Nye turns to all the three possible approaches to power in social sciences that I described in Chapter 1.1.1, namely power-as-potential-influence (a resource-based approach), power-as-influence (the agent's behaviour) and power-as-outcome-control (the subject's preferences). On the one hand, this conflation may be-perhaps, ironically-somewhat useful in that it underlines the importance of including both power-over and power-to perspectives in the analysis of power, which Nye explicitly favours (2011a: 10-12). At the same time, it has generated two problems. First, it has created much confusion in the academic applications of Nye's approach: as a result, scholars approach soft power in terms of behaviours, resources, policies and other factors interconnectedly. To exemplify, Fan unambiguously amalgamates the behavioural and resource-based approaches to soft power (see Table 3, for a similar instance, see Gilboa 2008: 61). Hard power Soft power Ability to change others' position by force or inducement Ability to shape the preferences of Others by attraction Military and economic power Cultural power Coercion, force Co-option, influence Absolute Relative, context based Tangible, easy to measure, predictable to Intangible, hard to measure, Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 37 certain degree unpredictable Ownership specified Unspecified, multiple sources Controlled by State or organisations Mostly non-state actors, uncontrollable External, action, push Internal, reaction/response, pull Direct, short-term, immediate effect Indirect, long-term, delayed effect Manifested in foreign policies Communicated via nation branding Table 3. Comparison of Hard and Soft Power. Source: Fan 2008: 151. Other scholars, following Nye's misleading formulations, seem to strictly equate a particular type of resources with a certain type of power. Rothman, for instance, strictly categorises resources into four categories linking each of them to a particular type of power behaviour (see Figure 4) and hence, completely ruling out the possibility that military and economic resources can produce attraction (2011: 52). Likewise, Lee (2009) has come up with an explicitly resource-based account of soft power, considering power as soft when A applies non-material resources and hard when A uses material ones. Similarly, Kearn (2011: 74) and Gallarotti (2011: 33-34) tend to label material resources as "hard power resources" and non-material resources as "soft power resources." Hence, although Nye has tried-as he explicitly argues (2011a: 22)-to be careful with formulations regarding the relationship between power behaviour and resources by using words like "usually," "mainly" etc, researchers have largely interpreted his overfocus on resources as though they are the quality which determines the distinction between the two kinds of power. Figure 4. Dichotomous and Continuous Power. Source: Rothman 2011: 51. Second, a number of IR students has questioned Nye's notion that hard and soft power are really independent of each other. Some researchers dispute this point from a strategic perspective, arguing that soft power can be effective only if coupled with hard power to sustain it (e.g. Zahran & Ramos 2010: 19, Fan 2008: 151-152). Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 38 Nye generally contests such statements, maintaining that certain objectives, such as democracy and human rights promotion, are best accomplished by soft power alone (Nye 2006). At the same time, he admitted that from the policy-oriented perspective, the relationship between the two kinds of power is indeed complicated, for they "sometimes reinforce and sometimes undercut each other" (Nye 2011b: 24). Saying that, he proposed another term, "smart power," which denotes "the ability to combine hard and soft power resources into effective strategies" (ibid: 22-23).23 Eventually, this has paved the way for a big debate in strategic studies (e.g. see the special issue 38 (3) of the Journal of Strategic Studies entirely devoted to smart power), which, however, lies beyond the scope of my research. More significant for my study is the criticism coming from those who contest Nye's approach from a conceptual perspective: questioning the idea that coercion and attraction are indeed autonomous of one another, those scholars argue that in fact, even defined in behavioural terms, but from the agent-centered perspective, the two forms of power inevitably overlap. Put differently, "[t]he problem is that changing what others do is different from changing what others want, but it is not the opposite of changing what others want" (Baldwin 2016: 166, emphasis in original). In this vein, Bially Mattern (2005) argues that from a linguistic point of view, soft power based on attraction in the form of "convincing others to follow" is grounded on a so-called verbal fighting which is coercive in nature. She posits that every actor has the perception of reality which is in line with his/her role identity; and when one actor tries to persuade another, they fight over reality, using "representational force" that consists in threatening another actor's identity with harm. Naturally, it does not contain any physical mischief, but is still coercive in essence. In a similar manner, Lukes (2007: 94) contends that "hearts and minds are never won by pure argumentation without recourse to that black arts of rhetoric," showing scepticism towards the idea that "there is a freedom-friendly 'Western' way of winning hearts and minds that contrasts with a freedom-suppressing 'Islamic' 23 Gallarotti also shares this viewpoint, believing that the two forms of power are "neither perfect substitutes not rigid complements" (2011: 33) and that both are needful for effective strategies, since "the use of one set of resources may either economize on or enhance the need for another set of resources" (ibid: 34). In some of his writings (e.g., Gallarotti 2010), however, instead of "smart power," he uses the term "cosmopolitan power" which means practically the same. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 39 way," as some passages of Nye's works can be interpreted. Analogously, Zahran and Ramos (2010: 24) consider a strict difference between coercion and attraction in Nye's writings as quite implausible, arguing that a closer connection between soft power and Gramsci's hegemony would describe social relations more realistically. As they put it (ibid), [c]oercion is a mechanism intrinsic to consent: it lies down on a secondary level while the mechanisms of consent prevail in society, but it is still latent and emerges in moments of rupture of the consent. Disregarding hegemony, Nye creates an illusion of an aspect of power that could exist by its own only through consent, ignoring the social reality populated by intrinsic mechanisms of coercion. In reply to this criticism, Nye (2010: 217) acknowledged that coercion and consent may sometimes be complementary to one another, which indeed means that though "there is a distinction between coercive and attractive behaviour in many instances," soft power sometimes may be rooted in hard power. Analogically, he seems to have admitted-at least, to, some extent -the correctness of Bially Mattern's argument, stating that US soft power is indeed partially grounded on coercive verbal fighting (ibid).24 Moreover, in his latest publications, Nye appears to have dropped the binary vision of power, instead presenting power as a continuum of A's possible behaviours that can be comparatively harder or softer (see Figure 5), but concurrently admitting that they may overlap, especially for what concerns the agenda-setting aspect: as he puts it (2011a: 22), [t]he behaviors in the spectrum the Diagram sometimes overlap, but they can be conceived in terms of the degree of voluntarism in B's behavior. In the middle of the spectrum, payment has a degree of voluntarism, and agenda setting can be affected by institutions and discourses that B may not fully accept. That aspect of agenda setting is determined by hard power, but to the extent that hard power in one period can create in a later period institutions that limit the agenda but are widely regarded as legitimate, then agenda setting is part of co-optive and soft power. Hard → Coerce Threat Pay Sanction Frame Persuade Attract ←Soft Figure 5. A Spectrum of Power Behaviours. Source: Nye 2011a: 19. 24 Yet, saying this, Nye simultaneously contended that many in the world still share liberal values voluntarily, interpreting it as a proof of the general accuracy of his account of soft power (ibid). Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 40 Hence, Nye confesses that his take on soft and hard power first, presupposes the interconnectedness of the two power forms and second, does not allow to avoid an overlap between them. In general, this appears to diminish not only the academic utility of Nye's account, but also its analytical value from the policy-oriented perspective. Indeed, if soft and hard types of power are inevitably complementary and attraction is rooted in coercion, then those realists who discard soft power as "just a polite way of describing the ideological expansionism" (Layne 2010: 73) do not seem far from the truth. Yet, once Nye seems to have provided a possible clue on how the issue of drawing a clear distinction between the two forms of power may be resolved: as the quote above suggests, Nye believes that A's actions "can be conceived in terms of the degree of voluntarism in B's behavior." This logically entails that it is actor B that determines whether A's actions are of coercive or attractive nature and therefore, the two forms of power should be distinguished in subject-centered terms. On this point, one can agree with Baldwin that "[t]he conceptual problem is that all the words juxtaposed on the spectrum [in Figure 5] seem to refer to A's behavior" (2016: 170, emphasis in original). Accordingly, it seems that the subject-centered perspective which, as I argued above, is auxiliary is Nye's writings, can shed more light on how to discriminate between the two kinds of power in a way that would not make them overlap. Nonetheless, the disparateness between the two power forms is not the only source of muddle in the Nyeian account. The other ones concern Nye's imprecision regarding attraction, the main mechanism of soft power, which I discussed next. 2.3. Attraction: An Agent-Centered Perspective As it straightforwardly follows from all the three definitions of soft power, the main mechanism of co-optation is attraction, to which Nye refers as soft power's main "currency" (2004: 7). Considering it mostly from A's point of view, he parallels attraction with seduction (2004: 5) and love (ibid: 7) in the personal life and deems it as and the most co-optive possible behaviour in a power relationship that A can exhibit towards B (see Tables 2, 5). Stating that it "often leads to acquiescence" (2004: 8), Nye allows for the possibility of attraction being not necessarily Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 41 intentional: according to him, A's approach to co-optation may be "passive," which works like "shining city on the hill," or "active," which implies deliberate measures (2011b: 94-95)25. Besides attraction, Nye casually mentions two other mechanisms of soft power, namely agenda-setting and persuasion with the latter being defined as "the use of argument to influence the beliefs and actions of others without the threat of force or promise of payment" (ibid: 93). Yet, albeit he does not say it directly, Nye seems to conceive of them as instances of attraction, which becomes apparent when he typologises power means into coercion, reward and attraction (ibid: 10). Further, Nye's formulations like "in behavioral terms soft power is attractive power" (2004: 6) can also be expounded as the possibility to fairly reduce the entire soft power to attraction. Gallarotti states that soft power works through "a positive image in world affairs that endears nations to other nations in the world polity" (2011: 27-28). More precisely (ibid: 28), [t]his positive image generates respect and admiration, which in turn render nations that have soft power more endearing in the eyes of other nations. The endearment can be so strong that other nations may even attempt to emulate the policies and/or actions of soft power nations, domestic and/or foreign. Gallarotti's model of soft empowerment (2010: 61-66, 2011: 35-37, see Table 5) illustrates how, as a result of attraction, the subject's preferences are getting closer to those of the agent. Figure 1 below represents the bargaining space between countries M and N at an initial point, while figures 2-4 show the same bargaining space during M's enjoyment of N's soft power. The model suggests that due to attraction, the interests of M are drifting closer to those of N, which eventually results in the bargaining equilibrium getting more favourable for N (and N enjoying some soft power of M).26 25 The passive model, however, does not appear to enjoy much attention in Nye's writings owing to his policy-oriented approach. 26 Gallarotti's model seems to more closely reflect Nye's 2004 and not 2011 version of soft power, since it only includes A's changing B's interests (akin to the third face), while Nye's 2011 definition also embraces agenda-setting, the second face, which implies not altering B's interests, but restricting his/her behavioural options in A's favour. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 42 Figures 6. Process of Soft Empowerment. Source: Gallarotti 2011: 36. Interestingly, soft power is about general rather than specific actions: according to Nye (2004: 16-17), the effect of attraction can be best seen with regard to long-term goals rather than singular moves. Likewise, Gallarotti (2011: 28) calls soft power a sort of meta-power, a term signifying that "power relations themselves are embedded within some greater constellation of social relations that influence those power relations and thereby influence final outcomes that derive from the interactions among actors." According to Gallarotti, meta-power "is often equated with agenda control," which allows him to posit that in the analysis of a soft power relationship, "little can be inferred about the balance of power in a bargaining process merely by simply looking at the equilibria within the existing bargaining space. One actor may seem to be moving the other actor closer to his/her preferred position within the bargaining space without, in fact, enjoying much influence over the seemingly compliant actor" (ibid). Otherwise stated, attraction forms underlying, Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 43 basic principles of relations between two actors, which does not exclude possible "[d]isagreements over minor policy differences" (Kearn 2011: 69). With respect to the active approach to attraction, Nye states that soft power resources (discussed below) can be converted into outcomes via strategies that are effected through "national intelligence services, information agencies, diplomacy, public diplomacy, exchange programs, assistance programs, training programs" etc (2011b: 99). Nye argues that such strategies may be intended "for both zero-sum and positive-sum interactions" (2011b: 90) with the former implying that A strives to divest its competitors of attractiveness and legitimacy so that an increase in A's attractiveness will lead to the diminution of that of its adversaries (Fan 2008: 151, Nye 2011b: 99). Yet, Nye regards the realisation of such strategies as problematic, since, first, it takes much longer time to influence the target with soft power compared to hard power, second, the success of such strategies is too contingent on the subject, and third, they require the participation of civil society and not only governments (2011b: 83). Paradoxically, the strategic application of soft power is the direction of research that has enjoyed most scholarly attention, though soft power is admittedly "intangible, uncontrollable and unpredictable" (Fan 2008: 154) and hence, hard to be intentionally wielded. What is more, research in this direction does not seem to treat the very concept of soft power seriously enough: to illustrate, Nye's statement that public diplomacy is one of the tools of soft power strategies (2008b, 2011b: 100-109) has led to the two terms being used almost interchangeably in empirical case studies, as some scholars note (e.g. d'Hooghe 2015: 23, Hayden 2017: 335-336). Nye conceives of power as based on resources, at the same time explicitly discarding the elements-of-national-power approach as possibly helpful for policy practitioners, but hardly passable for academic research (2004: 2-3, 2010: 220-221, 2011b: 8-9). However, as I showed above, Nye occasionally resorts to the resource-based approach for differentiating between soft and hard power. With regard to attraction, he does the same: although he defines soft power in behavioural terms, however, in his endeavours to operationalise it, he gives substantial consideration to soft power resources which he terms as the assets that generate attraction (2004: 6). According to him, "[t]he soft power of a country rests Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 44 primarily on three resources: its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority)" (2004: 11). The word "primarily" seems crucial here, since Nye explicitly states that although hard power may be associated with hard power resources and soft power with soft power resources (see Table 2), "the relationship is imperfect" (2004: 7). Nevertheless, he frequently operationalises attraction in a way that embraces only these resources: Table 7 gives an instance of such operationalisation in one article dedicated to the conversion of soft power sources into outcomes through public diplomacy. Sources of Soft Power Referees for Credibility or Legitimacy Receivers of Soft Power Foreign policies Governments, media, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) Foreign governments and publics Domestic values and policies Media, NGOs, IGOs Foreign governments and publics High culture Governments, NGOs, IGOs Foreign governments and publics Pop culture Media, markets Foreign publics Table 7. Soft Power Sources, Referees, and Receivers. Source: Nye 2008b: 107. Gallarotti develops Nye's account by providing a more detailed description of the exact aspects of a country's culture, foreign policies and political values that can be regarded as sources of attraction (see Table 8). According to him (2011: 28), such sources include "the domestic and foreign policies that nations follow, the actions they undertake, and/or national qualities that are independent of specific policies or actions (e.g. such as culture)." International sources Domestic sources Respect for international laws, norms, and institutions Fundamental reliance on multilateralism and disposition against excessive unilateralism Respect international treaties and alliance commitments Willingness to sacrifice short-cut Culture  Pronounced social cohesion  Elevated quality of life  Freedom  Sufficient opportunities  Tolerance  Alluring lifestyle Political institutions Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 45 national interests in order to contribute toward the collective good Liberal foreign economic policies  Democracy  Constitutionalism  Liberalism/pluralism  A well functioning of government bureaucracy Table 8. Foundations of Soft Power. Source: Gallarotti 2011: 30. In his latest publications, Nye generally shifts his perspective from resource-based to behavioural, yet, continuing to consider attraction from the agent-centered perspective. In this vein, he states that military and economic resources may also serve as soft power assets providing that A uses them to attract rather than coerce (2011b: 85-87). Therefore, the key factor here is not the sphere to which this or that asset belongs-military, economic, cultural or another -but rather, whether a certain asset can "translate into the behaviour of attraction that can influence others toward favorable outcomes" (ibid: 84). Similarly, Gallarotti stresses that the possession of military and economic resources (which he calls "hard power resources") could produce soft power by strengthening respect and admiration to A depending on the way A applies them. According to him, for producing attraction, they should be used in manners which do not digress from the liberal principles (see Table 8): as possible examples, he cites "protecting nations against aggression, peacekeeping, or liberation against tyranny" (2011: 33). Moreover, he argues that "[h]ard power carries obvious disadvantages for image if it is manifest in an aggressive-imperialist style: invasion, imperialism, economic sanctions, and threats" (ibid: 33-34). Disappointingly, albeit both Nye and Gallarotti explicitly state that resources are subsidiary for understanding attraction, the considerable attention both pay to them has made the resource-based operationalisation of soft power popular among scholars. Some case studies consider soft power exactly along the three resources put forward by Nye (e.g. Gill & Huang 2006, Heng 2010), others modify them to account for the peculiarities of the country they analyse (e.g. Cho & Jeong 2008). In its purest form, however, the resource-based approach appears in soft power indexes that attempt to measure countries' attraction quantitatively (e.g. Ernst & Young 2012, McClory 2015). Ironically, some theorists take Nye's three resources and turn them against him: Layne (2010), for instance, uses them to criticise Nye's Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 46 account of attraction for being excessively based on ideas not taking account of material factors (which does not seem correct if military and economic resources are also factored in), whereas Hall (2010) takes the three resources to uncover lack of psychology behind attraction (discussed below in detail). Resource-based operationalisations appear to eventually misconceive the very idea of attraction: as Baldwin (2013: 289) justly noticed, "[t]his amalgamation of the discussion of defining characteristics of soft power with empirical observations about it has generated needless confusion." Indeed, while the resource-based approach may in some instances be appropriate for policymakers working on the enhancement of their countries' international images, academically this approach distracts scholarly attention away from a more important problem, namely how attraction works. As Roselle et. al. (2014: 71) put it, instead of concentrating on how influence takes place during the soft power relationship, soft power analysis has largely resulted in sophisticated counting of tools or resources. Soft power analyses suggested governments must develop and maintain soft power capabilities. They paid less attention to how such capabilities could have influence or impact. While hardly anyone would contest that the assets described by Nye can produce attraction in certain cases, understanding causal mechanisms behind soft power (i.e., soft power bases) necessitates revealing what always produces attraction, that is, what can be called necessary or sufficient conditions of attraction. Perhaps the most compelling and comprehensive argument about the inability of the resource-based approach to uncover it has been made by Todd Hall (2010). In his study, he points to the fact that "Nye's writings present attraction as a psychological mechanism, but the psychology behind it is missing" (ibid: 206). Trying to solve this problem, he analyses Nye's three resources, deducing that, first, they do not necessarily generate soft power in the sense Nye understands it (e.g. appreciation of Hollywood films and liberal values may not necessarily lead to the acceptance of US foreign policies), second, B may not necessarily associate them with A (e.g. films can be liked for their quality and special effects and not for ideational content) (for details, see ibid: 198-201). As a result, Hall concludes that it is impossible to draw a psychological mechanism of attraction from those resources: Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 47 they can be regarded as neither necessary, not sufficient conditions of attraction.27 Arguing this, Hall proposes to completely dismiss attraction as too vague and too complicated a mechanism to uncover psychological foundations of soft power (ibid: 207-208). Instead, he suggests soft power be replaced by three distinct "soft powers," each with a clear psychological mechanism: those are institutional power, described as "the options available to state actors according to their membership and relative position within specific international organizations which enable those states to exercise influence within them" (ibid: 208), reputational power, presented as "the manner in which particular reputations provide states with issue-specific forms of influence" (ibid: 209) and representational power, defined as "the ability of states to frame issues, advance their own interpretations, and consciously seek to shape the beliefs of others" (ibid: 210). Nonetheless, although Hall's typology enables to clearly specify the psychological pathways, it still contains its own problems. First, as he admits himself (ibid: 207), it is not exhaustive, so it does not cover all dimensions of attraction. Second, the types of power that he presents differ from each other in a way that makes the typology discordant: Hall's reputational power, for instance, works from B to A, while representational power-from A to B. Moreover, while Hall's argument that A's soft power resources in many cases are unlikely to lead to B's acceptance of foreign policies appears compelling, it seems that his main conclusion-that attraction should be totally dropped-is too hasty, and in fact, the real problem of Nye's account is that he mixes up the political goal of A's attraction with its other goals, amalgamating sources of attraction with its effects. On this point, Fan (2008: 149-150), for instance, notes that when giving examples of soft power's proxy measures, Nye oddly mentions foreign immigrants and asylum applications in the same category as life expectancy and spending on public diplomacy.28 Hence, this hardly means that attraction should be totally discarded. Rather, this implies that 27 A similar argument can be found in Baumann and Cramer (2017: 195-197) who also make a critical review of Nye's resources showing they alone hardly produce attraction. However, unlike Hall who simply analysed Nye's culture-values-foreign policy triad, Baumann and Cramer engage in a careful reading of Nye's writings, deducing a diverse list of resources. 28 This conflation of political and non-political attraction has engendered misunderstanding among case study researchers: for instance, one study (Treverton & Jones 2005) proposes to measure a country's attractiveness by asking people "where would you like to live other than your own country?" (ibid: 17), which seems to be helpful for some reasons, but hardly relevant to politics. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 48 Nye has failed to properly specify the scope of power, which, as Baldwin elsewhere argues (2013: 276, 2016: 31), is a necessary thing to do so as to make a meaningful statement about power. Furthermore, Hall's argument in favour of dismissal of attraction contains the following passage (2010: 207): [s]ome might argue for a more intensive theorization of attraction. Such a theory entails a more thorough explication of the psychological underpinnings of attraction; an outline of its different forms; specification of its eliciting conditions, durability, and tangible effects; and ways to empirically disentangle attraction from processes that have similar consequences. This accomplished, there is still no guarantee that this mechanism is actually capable of generating important empirical effects. This argument appears scarcely convincing for two reasons. First, though one may agree with Hall that explaining how attraction psychologically functions requires an extensive work, neither of the steps that he mentions seems an impossible task. Second, it is, of course, a matter of personal taste what exactly falls in the category of important empirical effects: as the entire literature review in this chapter shows, the idea to clarify mechanisms behind attraction is welcomed by many scholars. At first glance, it seems that the successful fulfilment of everything to what Hall points may encourage policy practitioners to be more attentive to linking their actions with the desired goals and researchers to carefully check before concluding that a certain influence of A vis-à-vis B is really a case of attraction and is likely to produce the effects that the neoliberal logic of soft power would expect. Thus far, IR scholars have pointed to a number of possible ways to overcome the drawbacks of the resources-based approach without changing the agent-centered perspective. Neither of them, nonetheless, seems to have a potential success. The first one relates to the importance of the setting in analysing how A attracts B. This is in accord with Nye's statement that "[a] policy-oriented concept of power depends upon a specified context to tell us who gets what, how, where, and when" (2011b: 7, emphasis in original) which, however, fails to specify how exactly the context matters. Along this line, Kroenig et. al. (2010) use psychological insights to explore the conditions that may be favourable for A to achieve what it wants from B: the three ones that they have found are that "states must communicate to an Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 49 intended target in a functioning marketplace of ideas, persuade the target to change its attitude on a relevant political issue, and ensure that the target's newly held attitude influences international political outcomes" (ibid: 412). Aside from the seemingly substantial practical usefulness of their findings for practitioners, the fact that they ground their study in social psychology and pay a close attention to B should be certainly welcomed. Yet, their interest is strategic and therefore, they explicitly build their article on the studies of intentional persuasion. This strategy seems hardly able to explore the full potential of attraction, since, as was argued above, first, persuasion is only a subcase of attraction, and second, Nye's "passive" model allows for a possibility of unintentional attraction. The second way is to elaborate on the skills of A, the significance of which for producing A's desired outcome Nye (2006) also emphasises. Eggereide (2012: 77), however, compellingly argues that emphasis on skills reduces the usefulness of soft power as an analytical concept, since, as she puts it, "'[s]kill' hides the fact that the link between behavior and outcomes is ultimately observable," becoming a sort of emergency exit for case study researchers. The third way consists in clarification of soft power resources understood as certain qualities possessed by A-either by further specifying culture, political values and foreign policy and subdividing them into a number of more particular categories (like did Gallarotti, see Table 7), or extending/diminishing the existent list of resources (like did Nye by adding military and economic resources). The problem here is that practically everything that an actor does has at least some impact-either positive or negative-on its reputation, let alone that listing all possible actions of A is barely practicable and unlikely to add any value to the understanding of the mechanism of attraction. Therefore, though intuitively understandable, in the end this approach seems bottomless and leading the discussion to nowhere: as Eggereide (2012: 82) puts it, as a result, "[s]oft power sources and behaviour become categories without boundaries." Some researchers, however, fall into this trap. Rothman, for instance, argues that defining soft power by virtue of resources-information, philanthropy and diplomacy, rhetoric, persuasion and agenda-setting-generates the "conceptual stretching" of soft power, reducing its analytical utility (2011: 50). Having said that, he then proceeds Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 50 to analysing all resources, from military to economic to rhetorical framing, and how they can be used by A in "softer" or "harder" ways (ibid: 50-55), which appears to add-perhaps, ironically-exactly to the conceptual stretching he mentioned. Likewise, Rawnsley (2016: 20) criticises the instrumental (resource-based) approach to the evaluation of soft power, arguing against a simple computation of "how many students are dispatched across the world on exchange, or how many television viewers may or may not watch a particular television channel." He also reminds that A's attractiveness in a soft power relationship is "heavily dependent on the way receivers have socially constructed and filtered the image of the source," which for case study researchers implies the necessity to account for "how audiences see the source" as well as "how the source sees itself" (ibid). However, later he oddly argues that the "most valuable working definition" of soft power is "a form of national power that is based on ideational and cultural attractiveness, which is intentionally or unintentionally realised by actors in international relations to achieve strategic imperatives" (Lee 2011: 11 as cited by Rawnsley 2016: 22), a definition which legibly reflects the agent-centered perspective on soft power, leaving unclear how it contributes to taking B into account. In addition, Rawnsley advocates the idea "to unpack the term so that its core components, including public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, international exchanges, and international broadcasting are used in the way they were designed to be used: as labels for distinct communicative practices, each with its own methods, objectives, audiences, and architectures" (ibid: 19). Otherwise stated, what he proposes is to keep considering soft power in strategic, intentional, agent-centered terms, just more closely attending to B's qualities. Yet, while the policy-oriented intentions here are intelligible, it is unclear how these steps factor in unintentional attraction, the possibility of which is stated in his above-mentioned definition.29 These examples show that attraction seems impossible to be properly 29 In a similar vein, Hayden (2017: 343-345) elaborates on what he calls soft power "mechanisms," however, explicitly noting that his study uses this term "as a signifier of how states mobilise or arrange specific resources to achieve expected effects" and not synonymously with "causal mechanisms" from a positivist perspective (ibid: 343). Important is also his remark that "any soft power case study of public diplomacy makes a de facto claim about a ratio of resources to behaviours" (ibid, emphasis in original), for it draws attention to the fact that most empirical research on soft power simply assumes causality, neglecting-or not even realising-the need of a clear causal mechanism. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 51 operationalised from A's perspective, be it resource-based or behavioural, and must be studied through the lens of B instead. As Baldwin rightly notes (2016: 168, emphasis in original), "[t]he instruments or techniques of statecraft are used to make influence attempts, but it is power bases that determine how successful they will be. Only thus can one maintain a clear distinction between foreign policy undertakings and foreign policy outcomes." Lock (2010: 36) makes a similar argument, pointing to discrepancy between Nye's rejection of the elements-of-power-approach and obsession with soft power resources: [t]he suggestion that power is something that can be possessed is conceptually problematic . . . and it moves Nye dangerously close to those scholars who have defined power in terms of resources. Nye . . . explicitly warns against this so-called 'vehicle fallacy,' but his determination to describe an agent-centered concept of power repeatedly leads him back in this direction. This idea is somewhat reflected in neoliberals' writings, however, under very cautious formulations. To exemplify, in his latest publications, Nye argues that attraction is "socially constructed" (2011b: 84), meaning that, first, "production of soft power by attraction depends upon both the qualities of the agent and how they are perceived by the target" (ibid: 92) and second, "attraction for one target may produce revulsion for another" (ibid), a statement akin to Gallarotti's argument that "[t]he use of aggressive military force can generate a positive image with nations who are benefiting from such an initiative" (2011: 34). However, taking this perspective on attraction would inevitably wash away the margins of hard and soft power defined from the agent-centered behavioural perspective. In Gallarotti's words, "the separation of the two types of power resources can be somewhat arbitrary and imperfect categorically," since on the one hand, "[t]he use of hard power resources can, in fact, diminish the hard power position of a nation in various ways," and on the other, "the use of soft power resources may also adversely affect a nation's image no matter how innocuous the resources" (ibid). Praising the trend toward attending closer to the subject of power, Baldwin, however, considers the undertaken efforts as insufficient stating that "[t]he subject's perceptions (and values) not only play "a significant role"; they apparently determine whether a resource produces hard or soft power" (2016: 169, emphasis Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 52 in original). Moreover, contesting Nye's statement that soft power depends more on the subject than does hard power (2008a: xiii, 2011: 83), Baldwin contends that "[s]oft power is no more dependent on the perceptions and values of the target than other forms of power" (ibid), i.e., whether or not A's behaviour is coercive or attractive is determined not by A's interpretation, but B's perception. This approach is firmly rooted in the constructivist interpretations of attraction: Bae and Lee, for instance (2013: 11), completely eschew from listing any concrete sources of soft power, simply stating that "potential sources of soft power (whatever they are) become real sources of soft power only when a receiver voluntarily develops a policy interest in importing and emulating them through prior socialization processes: there would be no natural or pre-given items (such as human rights, democracy and individual opportunities) to be sources of soft power." This logically drives the discussion towards the subject of a power relationship, which comes in section 2.5. 2.4. Attraction Between Agency and Structure Prior to proceeding to the subject, there is another issue that seems logical to cover, to wit, the neoliberal agent-centered approach is intensively criticised for its arguably insufficient attention to the agent-structure problem. With regard to soft power, such criticism has been made from diverse angles, each of which merits a description in this section. Some formulate it as the conflation of two types of attraction. Bially Mattern (2005: 591), for instance, maintains that Nye amalgamates two perspectives on attraction: on the one hand, when describing liberal values as universally attractive, he treats it as natural, and on the other, when speaking of necessity of public diplomacy for changing foreigners' preferences, he approaches it as socially constructed. Nye, however, contests this understanding, presenting the seeming conflation as a matter of short-term and long-term perspectives: as he puts it (2007: 163), Bially Mattern argues that I treat attraction both as 'natural', assuming such broad values as freedom and human rights are naturally attractive, and as socially constructed through reasoned persuasion. But I am not convinced by her argument that this is an ontological contradiction. In the short term, attraction to the Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 53 prevalent ideas in any given era can be treated as a given, but these ideas are not necessarily universal or immutable. Lock (2010: 34-35) provides a similar criticism, phrasing it as a conflation of relational and structural power in Nye's writings: indeed, when the US promotes its values in the countries that do not share them, its power is embedded in a bilateral social relation with that country; contrariwise, where the US uses its soft power over the states that already share the same ideas, its power is embedded in social structures. According to Lock, in reality, attraction rests on both of them, but Nye does not differentiate between the two, which results in two mistakes in his account. First, Nye tends to focus on A, simultaneously underestimating the role of B and its peculiarities (ibid: 36)-put under my study's terminology, he tends to disregard power domain. Second, Nye commits what Baldwin (2016: 82) calls the cui bono fallacy which pertains to the supposition that an actor that capitalises upon a certain power dispensation is the one who controls or has organised it. Nye frequently equates liberal values to US values, regarding them, in a sense, as a US possession and treating the US as the only agent of the power relationship, while other liberal countries as mere subjects. According to Lock (2010: 37-39), by doing so, Nye oversimplifies the phenomenon of power, disregarding that structures constrain and constitute agents, are shaped by agents' practices, but not owned by them.30 To overcome this conflation, Lock proposes to integrate insights from Foucault into the study of soft power to clarify that on the one hand, agency can directly produce attraction, but at the same time, structures may also work to actors' advantage. In his reply, Nye (2010: 215) generally appreciated Lock's critique, agreeing with him that "humility is essential in our analysis of power" and focusing only on A is detrimental to the accuracy of research.31 Yet, he is still reluctant to include the fourth face in his analysis for three reasons. First, Nye states that it would be 30 The same point, but from a more policy-oriented perspective, is made by those who criticise Nye's perspective as too US-centric: Fan (2008: 152), for instance, notes that "[h]undreds of millions of people around the world wear, listen, eat, drink, watch and dance American, but they do not identify these accoutrements of their daily lives with America". 31 Concurrently, Nye (2010a: 215) justifies his preoccupation with and overemphasis on the agent in his early writings as a methodological need dictated by the then goal of his research, namely to describe US influence. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 54 deleterious to the policy-oriented purposes of research, contending that "the insights that Foucault and other structuralists provide are purchased at too high a price in terms of conceptual complexity and abstraction" (2011a: 16). This argument, however, again brings us back to the previous section's discussion whether such complex phenomena as attraction can be appropriately explained from A's perspective. Second, Nye argues that his agent-centered treatment of power is closer to the dictionary definition and more widespread among practitioners than power's structuralist understanding (2010: 215). This justification appears valid, but insufficient, given that his agent-centered account is criticised even by scholars like Baldwin, who give substantial consideration to the compatibility of scientific definitions of terms and their everyday meanings (e.g. Baldwin 2016: 45). Third, Nye posits that his approach also allows taking account of certain features of social structures, even though not all of them (2011a: 16). This point appears somewhat odd: both Lock and Bially Mattern criticise him not for excluding structural power, but conflating it with the agentic power, not attending to a distinction between the two. It is noteworthy that, as with soft power resources, Nye's preoccupation with the agent has engendered scholars' different conceptions of the role of structure in attraction. First, some researchers tend to deem the structural dimension as unrelated to attraction. For instance, one case study tags Russia's approach to its soft power strategy as the concept's misinterpretation on the ground that Moscow primarily disposes of the structural rather than agentic dimension of soft power: to quote its author, "Russian policy in this regard seems to contradict the concept of soft power: instead of winning people over who do not share Russia's foreign principles and goals, the country seeks to mobilize those who already agree with them" (Ćweik-Kaprowicz 2012: 9). Second, some scholars discard the structural dimension as uninteresting or irrelevant from the policy-oriented perspective. Such is particularly characteristic of those researching public diplomacy: one suitable illustration of this account is the following excerpt from a study on Chinese soft power (Rawnsley 2016: 28): It is possible to argue that in exercising soft power, actors are simply reflecting and projecting the values they deem most Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 55 appealing. Yet if soft power can and does serve specific purposes and agendas-whether it is intent on changing the global conversation to attract more investment or elicit sympathy for a particular foreign policy via the promotion of cultural capital-bringing interests into the discussion and downplaying values returns the concept to the realm of political analysis and helps to explain the enormous investment of many governments in soft power activities. Finally, some scholars seem to exhibit the understanding of soft power as only structural. For Eggereide (2012: 78), for example, soft power means "to consciously tap into your structural advantage, and use it as a foreign policy tool." Likewise, Roselle et. al. (2014: 72) term attraction as "the ability to create consensus around shared meaning," which also implies that attraction has a structural nature. Similarly, Rothman (2011: 56-59) considers attraction as a diffused form of power, accentuating the role of norm diffusion in attraction. Analogously, Zahran and Ramos (2010: 14) state that soft power resembles hegemony in that both function via agreement on a number of general principles that envisages the superiority of a group, concurrently giving a certain extent of contentment to the rest of groups. To solve it, one can consider the agent-structure problem by virtue of a conflict of interests between A and B. The neoliberal perspective, however, formulates this point quite vaguely, stating that soft power presupposes some conflict of interest, though not much. To illustrate, while explaining the difference between hard and soft power, Gallarotti (2011: 28) notes that [h]ard power exhibits a greater conflict of interests relative to soft power. Hard power contemplates nations compelling other nations to do what the latter would ordinarily not otherwise do . . . Soft power, on the other hand, conditions the target nations to voluntarily do what soft power nations would like them to do: hence, there is far less conflict of interests in the process of soft power. In this regard, again, one can see a sort of paradox. On the one hand, as noted by Fan (2008: 148), the logic of neoliberals follows that soft power makes sense only when there is a conflict of interest, so that A has to attract B to alter its conduct. This directly follows from Nye's statement that ordering an agitated kid to jump does not involve power, because (s)he already wants to jump him/herself (2004: 2). At the same time, neoliberals also posit that A's intentional attraction works best when B does not recognise it as power-otherwise, B can conceive of it as manipulation, Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 56 but because "no country likes to feel manipulated, even by soft power" (Nye 2004: 25), A has to frame its arguments attractively, so that B will view them as legitimate and, in turn, persuasive (2011b: 93).32 Another perspective on this problem-seemingly more full-fledged and compelling-deems structural power as a necessary condition of attraction, which makes it possible for A to use its relational power. This stems from Nye's discussion of legitimacy, credibility and attitudinal similarity (2011b: 92) which he describes as crucial for attraction to happen. Along this line, Bae and Lee (2013: 6-7, see also Lee 2011) argue that Nye's conception of attraction is based on the methodologically individualist logic of causation, which treats power as relational (presupposing a conflict of interest between A and B) and directional (implying A's clear intention to change B's conduct in a certain direction). According to them, this logic unnecessarily limits the concept, presupposing that first, A must have a clear target to influence and second, B's change of conduct cannot but be the outcome of A's direct influence (ibid: 7). As a result, they argue, attraction is unavoidably tainted with hard power this way or another, which, at least to some extent, shows the truth of Bially Mattern's argument about the coercive nature of attraction (ibid: 7-8).33 To avoid it, Bae and Lee suggest soft power be viewed as, following Barnett and Duvall's taxonomy, productive power, for this is the only form of power based on "pure" attraction and not implying any coercion. The authors also leave a possibility for structural and institutional power to count as soft power contextually, provided that A does not resort to manipulation with sticks and carrots (ibid: 9).34 Reasoning this way, they state that in order to succeed, A's 32 To address this paradox, one may resort to the account of the strategic scholar Geun Lee (2009: 211), which can be interpreted as considering agentic soft power to be short-term, and structural soft power to be long-term: according to him, A's intentional soft power may produce short-term changes in B's policy, while long-term attractiveness requires "institutionalization, global or national standard setting, or the creation of social rhythms through 'synchronization and orchestration'" (ibid) 33 Yet, while generally appreciating the contribution of Bially Mattern, Bae and Lee (2013: 8) point that her basic assumptions ironically fall in the same trap as Nye's in that "Mattern's 'verbal fighting' is designed to construct attraction by a sender's [A's] successful creation of threat towards a receiver's [B's] subjectivity, thus presupposing both relationality and directionality." 34 The authors (2013: 10) contend that a similar reconceptualisation of soft power may also be possible by employing Foucault's vision of productive power; however, similarly to Lukes, they criticise him for explicitly highlighting the coercive nature of power and hence, providing no space for actors' conscious choice. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 57 possible direct attraction/persuasion must presuppose a prior socialisation on B's side (i.e., B should see A positively) coming up with two possible models of how soft power functions, be it with or without A's explicit attraction/persuasion (ibid: 9-11, see Table 9). Source of Soft Power (sender)→Diffusion of Sources→ →Socialisation of Sources (receiver)→Policy Change (receiver) Source of Soft Power (sender)→Diffusion of Sources→ →Socialisation of Sources (receiver)→Persuasion (sender)→Policy Change (receiver) Table 9. Soft Power Process without and with A's Explicit Intentional Attraction/Persuasion. Source: Lee 2011: 39. The same perspective can be found in the study by Kearn who states that soft power is about B's sharing "the same underlying goals" and "norms of appropriate behavior" as those promoted by A, which eventually creates a situation in which A can get B want what A wants without threats or bribes (2011: 69). For Kearn, soft power requires "a rule-governed institutional setting and the presence of underlying mutual interests" (ibid: 72) that activate the principle of similarity as follows: "[s]tate B views behaviors and policies of State A, assesses the interests and preferences of State A (as well as its values, ideals, and culture), and measures those against its own domestically constructed attributes" (ibid: 69).35 Similarly to Lock's, Kearn's discussion of A's structural power questions the accuracy of considering it as intentional and approaching it from A's perspective. First, while Nye considers agenda-setting as the ability of A, Kearn (ibid: 73) speaks of internalised norms on B's side without any note of A's intention, pointing that Nye's account "seems to confuse behavioral outcomes with interests and preferences." Second, Nye simply mentions agenda-setting in the list of soft power mechanisms, which adds to the 35 Kearn (2011: 73) also suggests that in Nye's writings, the problem partially arises from his arbitrary treatment of terminology, noting that under the term "attraction," Nye conflates attraction as an action and as the attractiveness of certain policies. Interestingly, such amalgamation happens only in those languages where the word attraction, like in English, means both "the action or power of evoking interest in or liking for someone or something" and "a quality or feature that evokes interest, liking, or desire" (see "Attraction" in Oxford Living Dictionaries, available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/attraction, accessed: 27 January 2017). In other languages, there is no such conflation: for instance, in the Russian edition of Nye's Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, attraction in the first sense is translated as "привлечение" (privlechenie) and in the second as "привлекательность" (privlekatel'nost'), see Nye, J. S. Jr. (2006). Gibkaja vlast': Kak dobit'sja uspeha v mirovoj politike. Moscow and Novosibirsk: Trendy). Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 58 confusion, since while intentional attraction is relational, agenda-setting by definition has a structural character (ibid). In other words, what seems to have conduced to the problem is Nye's failure to specify the relationship between agenda-setting and attraction: in his account, the former may be understood either as a subcase of the latter, or as something that necessarily precedes the latter. 2.5. Subject-Centered Perspective of Attraction: The Problem of Power Bases As was shown in section 2.3, the neoliberal agent-centered approach is contested as unable to provide what Hall (2010: 206) refers to as psychological mechanisms behind attraction, Baldwin (2016: 52) calls "power bases" and Lukes (2007: 91-92) describes as follows: Nye makes no distinction between different ways in which soft power can co-opt, attract and entice those subject to it; between the different ways in which it can induce their acquiescence. In short, he draws no distinction between modes of persuasion or ways of "shaping preferences." However, in fairness to Nye, he has tried to shed some light on it, stating, for example, that "[i]n persuasion, rational argument appealing to facts, beliefs about causality, and normative premises are mixed with the framing of issues in attractive ways and the use of emotional appeals" (2011b: 93). But again, as was noted earlier, considering it through A's lens may hardly succeed in providing a psychological link between A and B, since attraction as A's action does not guarantee a positive result: Nye himself admits that "[i]f you have a poor product, not even the best advertising will sell it" (2011b: 24). Power currency Corresponding dimension of the agent's life Psychological mechanism Foundation in basic human tendencies Brilliance The agent's relations with its work First admiration, then imitation Learning from others' successes Beauty The agent's relations with ideas, values and visions Inspiration Uniting with those having similar values/goals; the need for moral support and aesthetic experience Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 59 Benignity The agent's relations with other actors, particularly with the subject of soft power Gratitude and sympathy Reciprocal altruism Table 10. Soft Power/Attraction Currencies (adapted from Vuving 2009: 8-12). Source: Patalakh 2017: 151. Yet in his latest publications, Nye makes a slight attempt to approach this issue from B's side, stating that attraction is "socially constructed" and thus, "attraction depends upon both the qualities of the agent and how they are perceived by the target" (2011b: 84). To develop this point, Nye cites a small conference paper by Alexander Vuving (2009), which points to the existence of three "clusters of qualities of the agent and action that are central to attraction" (2011b: 92). According to Nye and Vuving, those three clusters, to wit, benignity, brilliance and beauty, are necessary conditions of A's attractiveness: as Nye puts it, "[w]ithout such perceived qualities, a given resource may produce indifference or even revulsion-the opposite of soft power" (ibid). Vuving argues those three clusters ("power currencies," in his terminology) produce attraction though various positive emotions. Precisely, if B sees A as successful at doing his/her job, B starts admiring A, deeming him/her as "brilliant." If in B's view, A's values, ideas and visions are similar to those of B and A is devoted to them and promotes them convincingly, B gets inspired, conceiving of A as "beautiful." Finally, if B considers A as treating others (especially B him/herself) in a respectful, kind way, B starts feeling gratitude and sympathy toward A, regarding him/her as "benign" (2009: 8-12, see Table 10). Though Vuving's typology certainly casts some light on psychological ties between A and B, it does not seem to be free of its own problems. Firstly, it is presented in a small conference paper that contains, first, no citations of any sources from where these causal mechanisms are taken and, second, no case studies or, at least, examples that would demonstrate their relevance with respect to IR. A brief look at relevant fields reveals that some of Vuving's suppositions are better grounded in science than others. To illustrate, while similarity, which he mentions as a psychological principle on which "beauty" works, is indeed recognised by social psychologists as a determinant of attraction (Finkel & Baumeister 2010, Montoya & Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 60 Horton 2004), modern biology highly questions the assumption that reciprocal altruism is characteristic of the behaviour of, as Vuving puts it (2009: 8), "most, if not all organisms" (e.g. Silk 2013). And even regarding similarity, the real picture seems far more complex than that described by Vuving (2009: 11), that is, "opposite values and causes provide a firm ground for regimes to see each other as ugly; and shared values and causes provide a push toward the perception that the other regime is beautiful." In fact, psychologists contend that first, attitudinal similarity is only one of several principles of attraction (for details, see Finkel & Baumeister 2010) and second, similarity as such does not automatically imply attraction; rather, it may get converted into attraction under certain conditions (Montoya & Horton 2004). Secondly, Vuving tends to reduce the whole process of attraction to the generation of positive emotions, paying no attention to the role of cognition in the human tendencies that he indicated. Not only is this at odds with Nye's idea that soft power aims to win both "hearts and minds" (2008b: 94, emphasis added), operating both in rational and non-rational ways (2010: 217), but also it contradicts psychological findings showing that actors might (and often do) reciprocate and seek like-minded actors both for cognitionand emotion-laden reasons (for reciprocity, see Stevens & Duque 2016, for similarity, see Montoya & Horton 2004). Thirdly, some passages by Vuving appear to exhibit a conflation of emotional coercion and attraction: to illustrate, when describing benignity, he presents A's line of reasoning about B's success as "you are more capable than me or if you are more capable than most people, it is safer not to resist you" (2009: 10), which oddly amalgamates true admiration and fear. Finally, both Nye and Vuving fail to elaborate on how (if anyhow) the B's behaviour differs depending on the "power currency" on which his/her attraction towards A rests. This seems exactly what Hall means by "important empirical effects." As with the debatable issues discussed in the previous sections, neoliberals' failure to provide soft power bases has engendered a variety of-often mutually contradictory-interpretations among scholars. Moreover, some of them approach the issue of soft power bases from B's perspective rather subconsciously, that is, they fail to explicitly address it, but a careful reading of their studies allows discerning their understanding of how it works. Among various perspectives, one Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 61 views attraction as having both logical-rational and affective-emotional dimensions: Roselle et. al. (2014: 72), for instance, state that "[a]ttractiveness may be based on both or either rational and affective components of culture, values, and/or policies." Yet, the method they propose to employ to unpack it-focusing on "strategic narratives" that A applies in his/her rhetoric to attract B-is agent-centered and therefore, is likely to fall into the aforementioned traps. The second approach (Kearn 2011: 67, Vyas 2011) deems attraction as having cognitive-rational roots on B's side, putting at the core of soft power A's success as perceived by B. The third perspective regards attraction as combining rational and normative foundations, Rothman, for instance, argues that "[s]tates will pursue policies they believe are successful for their goals, and if those policies are successful, the policy will become attractive to other seeking similar goals and most likely adopted by them" (2011: 59), simultaneously pointing that often, "[r]ather than acting based on a rational calculation, actors behave through considerations of what is normal or right" (ibid: 57-58). Finally, the fourth approach neglects the rational dimension of attraction, conceiving of it as normative and emotional. This approach appears, for example, in a study by Jhee and Lee who note that (2011: 52) "soft power could be measured on two distinctive evaluative dimensions-that is, affective and normative-corresponding to two core perceptual origins of soft power: attraction and legitimacy".36 Moreover, some adherents of this perspective explicitly discard the rational dimension as irrelevant to power relations. To exemplify, Baumann and Cramer, admitting the ability of rational persuasion to alter B's goals and preferences, find it contradictory to the very nature of power-over (2017: 198), arguing that "cooperation based on interest, especially self-interest, has little to do with cooperation secured by power" (ibid: 195). The seemingly most prominent perspective to be used to address soft power bases appears in constructivist/postmodernist studies which factor in actors' identities. Conceiving of attraction as "the ability to create consensus around shared meaning" (Roselle et. al. 2014: 72), postmodernists apply a Foucault-inspired 36 Their odd formulation "attraction and legitimacy" is apparently rooted in the (mis-)perception of soft power as being agentic or structural, aptly illustrating the relevance of the critical remarks discussed in the previous section. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 62 approach to analyse it as communication that structures actors' identities. Along this line, Bially Mattern (2005: 588) notes that soft power is rooted in "others' knowledge of one's alluring qualities," considering attraction as "constructed through communicative exchange" (ibid: 585) and arguing that "the most fundamental way to 'harvest' soft power is to spread social knowledge about one's values" (ibid: 589). Likewise, for Hayden (2011: 43), attraction is a sort of "symbolic, influence-oriented communication that operates in both the passive and active sense of soft power." Through attraction, according to him, actors "relate to each other in ways that are constitutive of their identity" (ibid: 46, emphasis in original). Bae and Lee also argue that the basis for socialisation lies in B's self-identification: as they put it, "[o]nce the receiver identifies a particular state or society to possess the sources of attraction, it is now a potential sender going through self-identification process" (2013: 11). From this perspective, attraction is regarded as being completely down to B's judgement and cognizable not as A's ability to influence B, but as B's "reaction to compelling attributes" (Hayden 2011: 45, emphasis in original). Put methodologically, the study of attraction, first, starts off from B and not A (Bae and Lee 2013) and second, from A's side may be viewed both as an active strategy as well as a diffuse spread of knowledge. One recent study that applied this perspective suggested that (Feklyunina 2016: 791) one of the key mechanisms of generating soft power is the renegotiation of collective identities . . . [W]e can assess the weight of a state's soft power vis-a-vis another state by investigating the extent to which the discursively constructed collective identity is accepted or rejected by different audiences in the second state, and by examining the ability of these audiences to affect the process of foreign policy decision-making. The subject-centered constructivist perspective seems potentially successful at uncovering soft power bases, for it allows taking account of B's needs and psychological peculiarities without making any deterministic statements about A's intentions. At the same time, its application requires cautiousness to avoid conclusions that appear somewhat sweeping. Solomon, for instance, seems to reduce the entire attraction to emotions and affect, arguing that the construction of actors' identities by attraction via language is impossible unless actors put affective investments to it: as he states (2014: 729), Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 63 [i]f discursive structures constitute the system within which subjects and identities are constructed (as many in IR have detailed), these structures alone cannot fully account for the potency of identities. Language must be infused with affect, in a sense, in order for it to have the 'force' that it often has. Incidentally, some realist scholars also interpret attraction as only emotional, but, unlike Solomon who welcomes such a conception, they use it to dismiss soft power as unrealistic. In particular, first, they tend to discard emotion-laden attraction as excessively simplistic: among them is Fan (2008: 153) who criticises Nye's account, inter alia, on the grounds that "[h]uman feelings are complicated and quite often ambivalent, that is love and hate co-exist at the same time." Second, they consider emotion-based attraction as scarcely manageable for A in the strategic way suggested by Nye: to exemplify, Fan (ibid: 154) posits that "human feelings such as attraction and affection can be fickle, so soft power based on this is difficult to sustain." Third, they tend to directly link affect to policy-making and then dismiss it on account that policy practitioners take certain decisions in favour of other states because their countries' national interests require that and not because they "like" those states (ibid: 153, Layne 2010: 53). In fact, reducing the entire attraction to emotions is self-confessedly wrong, and the third remark in particular seems to reflect a misconception of soft power. Indeed, the idea of attraction does not imply that B's policy-makers get "in love" with A; rather, A's soft power conduces to such an environment that induces them to consider taking a decision in A's favour as corresponding to B's national interest. Yet, the first two critical remarks seem equitable in that they are illustrative of Nye's insufficient specification of the role of emotions in the mechanism of attraction. Clues to the answer can be grasped from the posterior discussion in section 3.3.3. Discussion Despite the above-mentioned debatable points, hardly any study on soft power-no matter if supportive or critical-omits mentioning the popularity of this concept among policy-makers (e.g. Hall 2010, Kearn 2011, Rawnsley 2016). Many even find this success somewhat bewildering against the backdrop of the unpopularity of IR theory in general: as Kearn (2011: 65) puts it, Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 64 [i]nternational relations . . . theory is often derided or outright ignored as not relating to the practical day-to-day matters that inform policy-making . . . However, in the case of soft power, a theoretical concept has been enthusiastically adopted and deployed by political leaders, policy practitioners, and media pundits. Indeed, scholars rarely question the concept's policy-oriented implications: for instance, generally sceptical of Nye's account, Lukes (2007: 91) admits that "Nye's central practical and political concerns, both immediate and more general, are clear." Likewise, Baldwin (2016: 5) regards soft power as "a useful concept for policy analysis but also one in need of further clarification in order to become a useful social science concept." Hence, debated is the concept's analytical value, its utility for academic research. Problems in this connection seem-at least, in part-to have originated exactly in the policy-oriented intentions of the concept's coiner, which Nye acknowledges himself when reflecting on his critics: "Perhaps it would have been better if I had thought up the concept of soft power in the abstract rather than as a product of trying to think about the sequential problems of declinism and triumphalism in American foreign policy" (2010: 226). Moreover, the wide success of the concept appears to have been a double-edged weapon as well: according to some, its popularity is a factor that has poured oil on the flames, contributing to the concept's vagueness, making it, as Kearn (2011: 66) phrases it, "a 'buzz' word of little theoretical content."37 Probably the best comment on this point, again, has been made by Nye himself (2016: 3): With time, I have come to realize that concepts such as soft power are like children. As an academic or a public intellectual, you can love and discipline them when they are young, but as they grow they wander off and make new company, both good and bad. There is not much you can do about it, even if you were present at the creation. In fairness to Nye, his critics often misinterpret him, as is evident in the discussion of the chapter: to give some instances, Bially Mattern substitutes attraction for intentional persuasion, Layne equates attraction to emotional appeal, whilst Hall examined an earlier in lieu of the then up-to-date version of Nye's 37 Incidentally, soft power is not the only modern concept the catchiness of which is argued to diminish its academic utility: "failed state," for instance, suffers from its success likewise (Ezrow & Frantz 2013). Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 65 account of soft power resources. But again, such misunderstandings appear-at least, partly-to have sprung out of Nye's persistent inconsistencies and ambiguous formulations, many of which can hardly be justified by reference to the concept's evolution and development.38 On this issue, one can agree with Baldwin (2013: 292) that "his numerous attempts at clarification over a twenty-year period have not been completely successful." At the same time, even those critical of Nye note a certain success of soft power for academic research: to illustrate, Bially Mattern (2005: 590) admits that despite all deficiencies, Nye's account of soft power subtly integrates into the policy domain some of the long-standing scholarly insights about the workings of power, which have, until this point, been largely ignored as irrelevant to the bottom line of how to use power. Even Baldwin, who initially seemed censorious of Nye's perspective, stressing the fact that it contains nothing new (2013: 288-289), later appears to have mitigated his view, admitting that Nye's writings on soft power not only have drawn policymakers' attention to the importance of national image and its management, but also successfully led scholarly focus away from military sphere, eventually resulting in the broadening of our comprehension of power (2016: 170-171). Additionally, it would be hardly fair to argue that the concept has not improved at all: coined in the conditions of the 1990s as applied to the US in particular, the concept has later demonstrated its flexibility over time and adaptability to various IR actors, with its popularity growing rather than declining over years. A search on Google Scholar on the keywords "Nye" and "soft power," performed on 25 April 2018, indicated 497 uses in 1990-1999, 1680 in 2000-2004, 6220 in 2005-2009 and 17200 in 2010-2017. Moreover, the instances of the application of soft power in IR literature far exceed those of similar concepts, despite the latter's appearingly better specified domain and scope. To exemplify, such concepts as van Ham's social power 39 or Gallarotti's above-mentioned cosmopolitan power may seem 38 In a recent interview, Nye himself admitted that in different periods, his utilisation of the concept differed (Zhang 2017: 96). 39 Social power refers to "the ability to set standards, and create norms and values that are deemed legitimate and desirable, without resorting to coercion or payment" and includes "discursive power, drawing attention to the impact of framing, norm advocacy, agenda-setting, the impact of media and communications, as well as lesser-known practices like place branding and public diplomacy" (van Ham 2010: 8). Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 66 academically more precise, however, again, a search on Google Scholar reveals that as of 25 April 2018, Nye's book The Future of Power, published in 2011, has 1818 citations, whilst Ham's Social Power in International Politics and Gallarotti's Cosmopolitan Power in International Relations, both published in 2010, are dramatically less known, having only 133 and 79 citations correspondingly. Factoring in these points as well as the fact that what is most often contested is not soft power per se, but, rather, its interpretation by neoliberals, it seems outspokenly unwise to completely discard soft power and attraction, as scholars such as Hall and Layne suggest. Quite the contrary, it appears more reasonable to do additional research on attraction, as proposed by Bially Mattern (2005), keeping in mind the goal described by Baldwin: "Future research on soft power should clearly distinguish between definitional matters and empirical ones" (2013: 289). In particular, what seems academically needful is "taking soft power seriously" (Kroenig et. al. 2010), constructing-at least to the extent that it is possible-a more positivist, rigorous framework which would enable to 1) clearly disentangle between the two power forms without making them overlap, 2) take into account all the aspects of hard and soft power relating to both agentic and structural dimensions, 3) carefully exclude any aspects that do not correspond to the chosen definition of power. What is more, an academic account of soft power necessitates clear power bases, and since soft power, as I showed above, can be quite fairly reduced to attraction, the question "how soft power works" may be justly substituted for "how attraction works," which self-evidently requires a description in psychological terms. Unfortunately, this task hardly appears to have been successfully handled thus far. First, to date, virtually all research on soft power has been purely data-driven. Compared to the above-cited number of papers applying the concept, those making at least some theoretical contribution are a drop in the ocean. Second, the literature review performed in this chapter generates an impression that in place of taking cognizance of the already published arguments and the terminology they use, neoliberals' critics tend to steer the debate in their own directions, which becomes especially apparent in the discussion of relational and structural soft power. Considering this, a new framework on attraction should enable, as much as possible, to organise and integrate the accumulated ideas. Conceptual Debates Around Soft Power 67 Importantly, the implications of the psychological foundations of attraction are not limited only to the theoretical field, given that the psychological reason making A attractive for B eventually impacts on the logic and character of B's behaviour. Put upside down, knowing what distinctions in B's conduct, generated by different psychological bases, endows A's policymakers with a potential ability to vary their expectations accordingly and-at least, to a certain degree-manipulate B's behaviour. Lastly-and most importantly-the literature review has revealed the inability to accomplish this aim by applying the neoliberal perspective. Its most significant inconsistency is that though both Nye and Gallarotti contest the elements-of-national-power approach for neglecting that A's endowment with resources does not necessarily mean his/her achievement of the intended goal, their agent-centered approach ultimately falls into the same trap: A's activities aiming to attract B are uncertain to attain the wanted result. Accordingly, more suitable for research on soft power bases seems the constructivist subject-centered perspective, for it presupposes initially picking up those cases where B is already attracted to A. It is worth noting that changing the approach should not be interpreted as a proposition to underhandedly supersede one concept by another, masquerading them under a common name. In the end, Vyas (2011) and Kearn (2011: 68) also conceive of soft power as being apt for both neoliberal and constructivist paradigms, and, more importantly, Nye himself states that (2010: 219) "[s]oft power is an analytical concept, not a theory" and it "fits with realist, liberal or constructivist perspectives." Indeed, there seems to be nothing wrong in altering the approach if we accept Nye's statement that soft power is a real form of power and not just a catchy IR concept (ibid).40 40 Leaping ahead, it seems reasonable to state that what warrants in defence of Nye's statement is that social psychologists also differentiate between "soft" and "harsh" power, depending on bases (for details, see Fiske & Berdahl 2007: 681). Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 68 3. Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework "[B]eauty is power the same way money is power the same way a gun is power." - Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters, 1999. Introduction This chapter aims to provide a framework that would overcome the unresolved deficiencies of the neoliberal account of hard/soft power. The chapter is structured as follows. Section 3.1, as a mere formality, reiterates the goals of this research as they ensue from the discussion in the foregoing chapter. Section 3.2 elaborates on the study's theoretical framework, specifying the use of constructivism and resort to social psychology as well as defining power means in a way that corresponds to the chosen subject-centered perspective. Section 3.3 describes hard and soft power bases from social psychological perspective, particularising the definitional and empirical characteristics of each base of attraction in detail. As one can notice, the bases discussed in this chapter receive uneven attention. This is a consequence of not only asymmetries in available material, but also the fact that the explanations they require differ in depth in the sense that while some points are intuitively clear, others necessitate more profound explications. Discussion summarises the findings of section 3.3, draws theoretical conclusions on the behavioural impacts of soft power bases for A and B, dissects the advantages and limitations of the analytical framework and gives perspectives for future research. 3.1. Research Goals As logically arises from the review performed in the preceding chapter, this study's goals comprise as follows:  to define the bases of hard and soft power in a way that would enable to clearly demarcate them,  to find out the whole variety of causal mechanisms of attraction and explicate their defining attributes in a manner that would allow identifying those mechanisms empirically and, at least to a certain degree, prognosticate behavioural effects. Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 69 In doing so, the study takes into cognizance that  power bases should be determined in psychological terms,  social power embraces both relative and structural dimensions with the latter being necessary for soft power to happen,  the new framework should take a subject-centered perspective to power analysis and comprise all the four faces of power. 3.2. Theoretical Framework 3.2.1. Constructivism, Social Psychology and Unitary Actor Assumption My study is based on the constructivist account of power relationship as expounded in section 1.2.3. Anticipating possible criticism, I consider it worthwhile to note that ontologically, constructivism and rationalism are mutually complementary rather than mutually antithetic. As Choi (2015: 110-111) puts it, on the one hand, "the politically significant motives of social actions are broader and more diverse than most rationalists allow for," but concurrently, "solid and well-defined self-interests formed by cost-benefit analysis can lead actors to forsake their normative values and identities." Likewise, constructivism does not contradict, but rather complements rationalism in epistemological terms: Barkin, for instance, argues that constructivism as a methodology does not necessarily have to be based on idealism (although many often view it in such terms) and in fact, it is compatible with various IR perspectives including realism (2003: 336, 338). All in all, the ontological and epistemological premises of constructivism can enrich rational-choice-based approaches by overcoming the limitations of materialism and methodological individualism (ibid: 338-339). On this point, Barkin contends that "[n]either pure realism nor pure idealism can account for political change, only the interplay of the two, subject to the assumption that morality is contextual rather than universal" (ibid: 337). Considering this, Barkin argues for a reconciled approach that would "study the relationship between normative structures, the carriers of political morality, and uses of power" (ibid: 338). More precisely, it would "look at the way in which power structures affect patterns of normative change in international relations and, conversely, the way in which a particular set of norms affect power Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 70 structures" (ibid: 337, for a detailed elaboration on it, see Barkin 2010). Apart from its other premises, carefully listed in section 1.2.3, especially relevant to this study is that constructivism shuns making deterministic statements about actors' preferences and hence, it allows using psychological insights. With regard to this, I follow Mercer (2005) who argues against detaching rationality from psychology in IR research, despite that this is often done by political scientists that tend to believe that psychology explains only mistakes. Defining rationality as "using the best means to achieve a given end" (ibid: 79) and focusing on the outcome rather than the process of decision-making, Mercer shows that rationality is contingent on (and not free of) psychology-while the latter, in its turn, does not need rational baselines. Most importantly, he argues that the study of rational decisions necessitates focusing not only on cognition, but also on emotions, since, as neuropsychological studies show, accurate judgements require emotions and in fact, "hyperrational" actions tend to be as detrimental to their maker as overly emotional ones. As Mercer puts it, "[e]xtreme emotion distorts judgement, as does extreme cognition" (2010: 7-8) and "[i]magining that emotion only interferes with analysis is wrong: someone deprived of all emotion becomes vacuous, not neutral" (ibid: 13, see also Stein 2013: 200-201). More specifically (2005: 93), [p]eople without emotion may know they should be ethical, and may know they should be influenced by norms, and may know that they should not make disastrous financial decisions, but this knowledge is abstract and inert and does not weigh on their decisions. They do not care about themselves or about others, and they neither try to avoid making mistakes not are they capable of learning from their mistakes. 3.2.2. Coercion, Reward, Attraction: A Subject-Centered Perspective Before commencing to study power bases in psychological terms from a subject-centered perspective, I would like to show that such research is not against the scientific current in the relevant field. My analysis kicks off with Nye's statement that A's power over B can be based on coercion, reward or attraction. Social psychology not only finds it possible to approach each of these from B's viewpoint, but moreover, this perspective seems preponderate in that field. In this fashion, rewards are conceptualised as "the pleasures, satisfactions, and gratifications a Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 71 person enjoys in participating in a relationship"; they rest on resources that are termed as "any commodities, material or symbolic, that can be transmitted through interpersonal behavior and give one person the capacity to reward another." (Sabatelli 2009: 1522). Coercion is defined as a force that makes B to behave in a certain manner due to the feeling of fear or anxiety that it produces (Colvin 2000: 36). More precisely (ibid), [c]oercion occurs when one is compelled to act in a certain way through direct force or intimidation from others or through the pressure of impersonal economic or social forces. Interpersonal forms of coercion may or may not involve the use of violence. Coercion can involve the threat of or actual taking away of something of value, such as a person's job or other social supports. It is punitive in nature. It motivates behavior because it is physically and/or emotionally painful and because it threatens to or actually does remove both expressive and instrumental social supports. Finally, the subject-centered view of attraction approaches it by virtue of B having a positive attitude toward A: Berscheid and Walster (1974: 20), for instance, define it as "an individual's tendency or predisposition to evaluate another person...in a positive or negative way" and Huston (1974: 11) conceptualises it as "a constellation of sentiments which comprise the evaluative orientation of one person toward another." Importantly, the attitudinal aspect of attraction rests on both B's affect and cognition (Finkel and Baumeister 2010: 419-420). Other definitions, apart from the attitudinal dimension of attraction, include the resultant behaviour as well. In this vein, Rogalin and Conlon deem interpersonal attraction as "a positive attitude one holds for another person, or the positive behaviors an individual displays in response to another person over a prolonged period of time" (2007: 202) and Simpson and Harris consider it as "a motivational state in which an individual is predisposed to think, feel, and usually behave in a positive manner toward another person" (1994: 48). What is also relevant, the nature and quality of attraction between A and B are affected by four types of variables: 1) variables peculiar to A, 2) variables specific to B, 3) variables which describe the physical and social environment in which attraction is embedded, and 4) emergent variables which are unique to the relationship between A and B, e.g. the fit between them (Kelley et al. 1983). Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 72 Peculiar to all these definitions is that, first, they all pay special attention to B's perceptions: in other words, it is valid to speak of coercion, reward and attraction when B perceives and interprets them as such no matter if A views the situation analogously. Second, neither of these definitions excludes the possibility of agentic and/or structural origin of power relationship: the reason why B interprets A's influence with respect to him/her in terms of coercion, reward or attraction may lie in A's, B's qualities or the environment, while A's intentionality may or may not be present. Finally, all of them allow taking into account both cognitive and emotional sides of B's actions. 3.3. Analytical Framework 3.3.1. French and Raven's Bases of Power To explicate the bases of soft power and distinguish it from hard power, I resort to the typology created by two psychologists, John French and Bertram Raven (1959),41 and later developed in a series of publications by Raven (e.g. 1990, 1993, 2008). Their account regards power as "a change in the belief, attitude, or behaviour of a person . . . which results from the action or presence of another person" (Raven 1990: 495). Importantly, they view the change in terms of the psychological situation as exists for B (French & Raven 1959: 150) and in connection with a certain system. Also, it has such characteristics as strength and range.42 The two authors then classify bases of power into five types (ibid: 155-156), each of which makes a distinct impact on A's power over B. Those types include  reward power, rooted in B's perception that A is capable of rewarding him/her,  coercive power, grounded on B's perception that A is able to penalise him/her,  referent power, rooted in B's sense of identification with A,  expert power, grounded on B's perception that A possesses a particular knowledge or competence,  and legitimate power, rooted in B's perception that A has a legitimate right to 41 It should not be puzzling that I ground my framework on a study that was performed over half a century ago, for in social psychology, it is regarded as most influential to date (e.g. Fiske & Berdahl 2007: 680). 42 "System," "strength" and "range" are entirely synonymous with "domain," "weight" and "scope," following my study's terminology that I, in turn, adopted from Baldwin. Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 73 ordain conduct for him/her. In accordance with Nye's perspective on power means, in the discussion that follows, I relate reward and coercion to hard power and the last three bases to soft power. Taking into account that the mechanism of soft power is attraction, I identify its three types, namely emotional, rational and social, which have their roots in referent, expert and legitimate power accordingly. I take their causal mechanisms and emotional features from French and Raven's research, describe and supplement them with the use of more recent relevant psychological and IR studies and cite pertinent examples from the IR field. 3.3.2. Hard Power: Coercion and Reward According to French and Raven (1959: 157), coercive power originates in B's expectation that (s)he will be penalised by A if (s)he does not yield to A's influence endeavour. Formally described, A's weight is dependent on the importance/size of the negative valence of the threatened penalty multiplied by the perceived probability that B can eschew the penalty by subordination, i.e., the probability of penalty for insubordination minus the probability of penalty for subordination (ibid). Coercion engenders contingent change, and the level of contingency varies with the level of A's ability to control B's conformity (what French and Raven refer to as "observability" or "surveillance"). However, coercion may also result in autonomous side alterations: on this point, French and Raven cite the example of brainwashing that results in dependent changes in the prisoner's life, which may later lead to his/her identification with the aggressor and thus side changes in his/her ideology that are autonomous of the coercion (ibid). Reward power, in its turn, hinges on A's potential capability "to administer positive valences and to remove or decrease negative valences" for B (ibid: 156). In this case, the weight of A's power depends of the size/importance of the rewards that, in B's perception, A is able to arrange (ibid). What are the distinctive features of this power base? First, it is heavily contingent on A, since it is A that brings about rewards and controls the probability that B will get them. Put formally, the change in B's behaviour is equal to B's subjective likelihood that A will provide him/her a Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 74 reward for conformity less his/her subjective likelihood that A will reward him/her even if (s)he reverts to the previous behaviour (ibid). Second, the scope of the reward power is limited to the areas where B perceives A as being in a position to reward B for conforming (ibid: 157). What is also important, the usage of rewards in order to alter B's conduct within the scope of power tends to strengthen the power by extending the probability tacked on future promises. In addition, unsuccessful endeavours to exercise power beyond its scope are likely to result in its decrease: to exemplify, if A offers to reward B for fulfilling an impossible action, it is likely to diminish B's perceived probability of obtaining future rewards that A promised (ibid). Third, when A applies real rewards (which has to be distinguished from mere promises), it is likely to augment the attraction of B towards A, which allows A to bring on changes that are comparatively autonomous of the reward (ibid: 156-157). Fourth, rewards and/or their promises will not arouse resistance in B if B regards it as legitimate for A to offer them (ibid: 157). As distinct from coercions, rewards generally augment attraction and lower resistance. These two power bases have one important commonality that distinguishes them from the other bases, namely significance of A's surveillance, or, simply put, high dependence of the change in B's behaviour on A (Raven 1993: 233). While in the case of reward power, A's provision of rewards to B is necessary for A's influence to continue, in the case of coercive power, A's surveillance is needed for his/her threats to be effective (ibid). The latter is because if threatened, B is motivated to discontinue the relationship with A and therefore, in order to attain conformity via coercion, A needs not only to cause B's fear, but also introduce restraints to hinder B from totally leaving the scope of A's coercive power (French & Raven 1959: 158). Some may argue that this point is less topical for the IR field, where states are geographically fixed, yet, some European countries' recent endeavours to re-orient their gas and oil trade in order not to be affected by Russia's coercive "gas diplomacy," aptly illustrate its relevance. As their descriptions show, the dynamics of the two powers are different: whereas reward power might lead to an autonomous domain, the results of coercive Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 75 power are always dependent on A. 43 Whereas reward power may eventually generate/increase B's attraction towards A, coercive power, on the contrary, not only diminishes this attraction, but also spreads B's negative perception of A's punishment to other spheres (ibid, see Baldwin 1971: 32-33 for a similar argument). Yet, reward and coercive powers can be sometimes confused, since A's refusal to give a reward/removal of penalty may be considered as equal to a punishment/reward correspondingly (and are likely to be interpreted this way by B). On this point, French and Raven (1959: 158) state that everything hinges on the situation as B psychologically sees it, contending that in the real life, it often happens that "receiving a reward is a positive valence as is the relief of suffering." 3.3.3. "Emotional" Attraction44 "Emotional" attraction is based upon referent power which rests on B's sense of identification with A, with "identification" referring to "a feeling of oneness . . . or a desire for such an identity" (French & Raven 1959: 161). The empirical effects of the identification vary depending on whether A is a group or a single actor: in the former case, B would desire to join that group, while in the latter, B would want to be densely associated with A (ibid). This endows A with the capability to affect B, albeit B might not be fully conscious of B's power with respect to him/her. B's line of reasoning in this case is like "I am like A, and therefore I shall behave or believe as A does" or "I want to be like A, and I will be more like A if I behave or believe as A does" (ibid: 162). This makes it clear that referent power should be discriminated from coercive and reward types of power by virtue of positive and negative sanctions (i.e., means of control over B) being meditated by A. While the logic of hard power presupposes that it is A that mediates the sanctions, the idea of 43 Yet, as French and Raven later argue, as the legitimacy of coercion increases, it generates increasingly less resistance and repulsion (1959: 165). 44 Since I have no psychological background and hence, I may not be absolutely certain whether this or that finding of empirical psychological research is applicable to the IR field-what is known as the "external validity" problem (see Krause & Kearney 2006 on the context-specific perspective of the usage of power bases)-in this section, I chiefly draw not directly upon psychological studies, but upon their reviews made by IR scholars. Given that those reviews have been published in well-reputed IR journals (or, in the case of books, by high-quality academic publishers) and, as their acknowledgements indicate, presented at high-class conferences and prepared with the advice of psychological scholars, I feel fully justified to entirely rely on the arguments they make. Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 76 referent power implies B's attraction towards A, that is, B avoids discomfort or gains satisfaction by conformity based on identification, regardless of A's responses (ibid). Therefore, the alteration of B's conduct can be contingent on or autonomous of A, but the level of dependence is not influenced by the degree of observability to A, and moreover, again, B might not even be cognizant of A's referent power over him/her (ibid: 163). What implicitly flows from French and Raven's description is that the most important characteristic differing the "emotional" attraction from its other two types is the crucial role of B's emotions and affect in it.45 This is consistent with IR literature arguing that cooperation and alignment have emotional as well as cognitive roots (e.g. Lebow 2007: 295-324). More precisely (ibid: 314), [a]ffection builds empathy, which allows us to perceive ourselves through the eyes of others. Empathy in turn encourages us to see others as our ontological equals and to recognize the self-actualizing benefits of close relationships with others . . . Affection and reason together make us seek cooperation, not only as a means of achieving specific ends, but of becoming ourselves. Social identity, self-categorisation and intergroup emotions theories in social psychology provide a sound argument for the role of emotions in one actor's identification with another. Tajfel (1981: 255, emphasis in original, cited in Sasley 2011: 457) defines social identity as "that part of an individual's self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership." The logic of one's identification with a certain group implies that (s)he makes the group a part of him/herself, sees the world via its "eyes," considering it as diverse 45 This argument should not be interpreted as though emotions are of no consequence for the rational and social types of attraction. Indeed, emotions are known as being ubiquitous and accompanying cognition (Mercer 2010) and moreover, sometimes actors follow social rules and norms for emotional reasons (Crawford 2000: 153-154). Yet, it is only in the identity-driven behaviour that emotions determine actions (see the discussion below). As observed by Mercer (2006: 297-298), "[e]motion is necessary for an identity to cause behaviour. Other variables contribute to identity, but even in the case of ideas or material interests it is an emotional connection with a group that gives identity its power". Otherwise stated (2014: 522), "[i]dentification without emotion inspires no action for one does not care. Whereas indifference makes identities meaningless (and powerless), emotion makes them important". On the other hand, one should refrain from going to the other extreme, that is, completely reducing identity to emotions, for B's identification with A implies that B's "cognitive function is accompanied by evaluative and emotional functions that operate simultaneously" (Chafetz et. al. 1998: 9). Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 77 and better than other groups (Mercer 2005: 96), which is a consequence of humans' basic psychological need to evaluate themselves positively (Turner et. al. 1987: 29-30, cited in Sasley 2011: 458). When this happens, "at the same time that actors perceive and make predictions about themselves based on social stimuli, identities evaluate what these stimuli imply about the actors' worth and provide emotional input" (Chafetz et. al. 1998: 9). Importantly, identification with a certain group is different from a formal membership in that group: the former may be present without the latter, and vice versa. Actors identifying themselves with a certain group tend to be "adopting its perceptions and representations as their own" (Sasley 2011: 457) and hence, to experience identity-based emotions, they "do not have to be directly involved in a given triggering situation, because simply identifying with the group produces emotional transference and shared emotional experience" (ibid: 459-460). Notably, identity-driven emotions may be experienced by social groups as well as individuals. Drawing on works by psychological constructivists, Mercer argues that "emotions pertain to an identity and not to a biological individual" (quoted in Mercer 2014: 522, emphasis in original) and presents them as an "irreducibly social" phenomenon in the sense that "[e]motion can be causally reduced to the body (because nothing other than the body can cause emotion) but it cannot be ontologically reduced to the body (because it feels like something to have emotion)" (ibid: 518-519). He also points to four factors conducive to the origination of group emotions, namely culture, group members' interactions with one another, contagious nature of emotions as well as events having group-level importance (for details, see ibid: 523-525). Finally, building upon recent research in psychology, Mercer contends that first, group emotion can be different from and is frequently more intense than individual emotion, second, members of the same group experience generally similar emotions and third, group emotions impact on conduct toward both in-group and out-group actors (ibid: 525-529). An important implication of this discussion is that "[i]dentities exist at individual, group, and state levels of analyses because emotion exists at these different levels" (ibid: 530). In other words, provided that the state is considered as a social group, one can talk of state emotions and their influence on state conduct. Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 78 A relevant perspective on the state is given by Sasley who theorises it as a "psychological-emotional group [which] chang[es] its members to think, feel, and react similarly so that we can speak of 'state' emotions" (2011: 465). Emotions experienced by the members of this group "determine the group's action tendencies (inclinations toward a specific behavior) and thus actual behavior" (ibid: 463). Remarkably, noting that the state as a social group comprises both the political elite and the public, Sasley posits that the latter cannot be completely omitted from an analysis of a state's emotions, because leaders conduct foreign policy "within a particular (social) context and on that (social) basis" (ibid: 465). Yet, according to him, for methodological reasons, it makes sense to treat the elite, where relevant, as a separate category (ibid: 469). First, social identity is stronger and gets activated more easily among state leaders given that they are those that directly represent states as psychological groups in front of other groups (ibid: 468). Second, while giving emotional responses and taking political steps, leaders act not as ordinary members of their groups, but as members officially enjoying a special status (ibid: 469). Third, due to their position, ruling elites-especially in democracies where they are publicly elected-tend to identify themselves stronger with their states, being, as research shows, especially likely to be patriotic and/or nationalistic (ibid: 468)46. B's identification with A is often coupled with the presence of the negative Other, that is, an actor that B views as an enemy/rival. Nevertheless, the existence of such Other is a probable, but not a necessary component of identification. Drawing on surveys and psychological research, Lebow (2008) shows that identities are normally shaped before the construction of the Other. Moreover, the Other does not have to be stereotyped negatively: in fact, borders between inand outgroups are rather supple and the Other may have a position on a continuum from threatening/negative to friendly/positive (ibid). Similarly, Mercer (2005: 97) 46 Alternatively, one can use a study by Wendt who, drawing on philosophy of mind and psychological studies, argues that states as IR actors can legitimately be viewed as superorganisms (2004: 309-311), which implies, inter alia, that they possess sufficient power to make intergroup competition subservient to their necessities (ibid: 311). The latter also seems to presuppose that to analyse the emotions of a state, one has to especially focus on, first, its political elite (given their power to make political decisions and strong capabilities to influence public opinion) and second, the majority of its population (especially in democratic countries). Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 79 argues that "in-group trust does not require out-group distrust-which is a feeling of pessimism about another's goodwill and competence-but it does require one to distinguish between trusting one's group and not trusting an out-group." Likewise, Chafetz et. al. (1998: 13, emphases added) contend that "[g]roup cohesion often increases in response to external threats but such threats, by themselves, are not necessary for cohesion to persist." Nevertheless, while the existence of the negative Other may be not necessary, the existence of the different Other is-in the end, a group as such exists only in comparison with other groups. In the words of Stern (2013: 208, see also Sasley 2011: 457) "membership in a group leads to systematic comparison and differentiation, and often, though not always, to derogation of other groups." For the IR field, the emotional component of a collective identity signifies that "groups of states require neither the external threat, as posited by neorealism, nor the institutional tasks, as predicted by institutionalism, to exist as distinctive collectivities" (ibid). Importantly, empirical studies suggest that B's identification with A gets more intense during conflicts with the Other and accordingly, B's negative emotions toward the Other also augment in such periods (Sasley 2011: 460, Mercer 2005: 97, for a detailed literature review on identity and conflict, see Stein 2013: 207-212). As Crawford (2000: 130) argues, "[e]ven though emotions are ubiquitous, they are most likely to be articulated and noticed in a crisis." According to French and Raven (1959: 162), the strength of A's referent power vis-à-vis B hinges on the strength of B's identification with A and moreover, the greater the attraction of B towards A, the wider the scope of the referent power of A. This is in tune with more recent studies on group emotions which posit that "[s]tronger identification leads to more typical and intense group emotions" (Sasley 2011: 460). Yet, although particular events and circumstances may play a significant role in the activation and strengthening of emotions, identity-based emotions as such arise out of identification with the group per se, so they are more inveterate and long-lasting than those particular events (ibid: 461). In general, emotional attraction is characterised by an especially long durability and wide scope of A's power with regard to B, which is a consequence of the fact that the sense of identification may lead B to sacrifice his/her "objective" interests for Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 80 the sake of aligning to A. On this point, French and Raven (1959: 165) state that the scope of reference power is the broadest of all the power types. Bloom (1990) depicts identification as a psychological bond which induces the whole population of a country to support a particular foreign policy even if it leads to a significant social pain and generates few tangible rewards. In a similar vein, Sasley (2011: 464) contends that it is "the intensity of emotional experience" which "can shape group behaviour even in the face of material disincentives." Likewise, Mercer (2005: 97) posits that "[a] strong feeling of group identity leads to sharing, cooperation, perceived mutuality of interests, and willingness to sacrifice personal interests for group interests." Therefore, actors expressing emotional attraction towards others tend to be biased in their favour, behaving contrary to cost-benefit calculations. Emotions, according to Mercer, may bring about "irrational or empirically unfounded beliefs," "contribute to irrational beliefs and self-destructive behavior" (2010: 7-8) as well as make "possible a generalization about an actor that involves certainty beyond evidence" (ibid: 2). One study arguing that Georgia's approach towards the EU is identity-driven, asserts that "[Georgian] attempts to integrate their country into European structures is often seen as strategic idealism which goes against all geopolitical arguments and even common sense" (Rondelli 2001: 195, quoted in Kakachia 2015: 175-176). Incidentally, in the development of identity-related emotions, an important role is played by traumas which, if experienced by a community (in this case, a nation), acquire a social meaning, mobilising emotions which bind the community members more strongly to one another (Hutchison 2010: 67-69). Also, depending on how they react to representations of a trauma, other actors either get affectively connected with the community experiencing the trauma or fail to do so (ibid: 71-73). The intervening variable, which lies between the emotional dimension of B's identification with A and B's readiness to sacrifice his/her interests, is trust that B feels towards A as a result of the "feelings of warmth and affection" (Mercer 2010: 6). Naturally, the behavioural impact of this kind of trust differs from the impact of trust described from a rationalist perspective as a consequence of incentives. Mercer (2005: 96) maintains that identity-based trust engenders a situation in which "individuals will forgo their short-term interests and cooperate to solve a Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 81 common problem." More precisely (ibid: 96-97), [t]rusting individuals cooperate (by restricting their consumption of a shared resource) even when they have information that others are not restricting their own consumption. Others have shown that identity is crucial to reducing competition within the group, and that identification with a group is linked to a willingness to conserve communal resources. Even when it is in the interest of cooperators to leave their group, they do not. Additionally, conducive to the long durability of A's power is the fact that on B's side, emotional attraction presupposes a lower degree of dependency on the perceived results of interactions with A than does, for instance, rational attraction. While the latter implies that the attractiveness of A in B's eyes diminishes if A's actual competence turns out to be lower than what B initially expected, in the case of emotional attraction, B's affinity with A still remains considerable even after a negative interaction experience with that actor. The reasons for this are, again, dictated by emotions: when B closely identifies with A, his/her emotions tend to make this actor rationalise his/her past alignment to A no matter what result it has brought. Crawford (2000: 142) argues that irrespective of their real utility in a certain situation, B's previous policies that (s)he currently associates with positive feelings are likely to be regarded in a positive light, while the actions B associates with negative feelings are likely to be considered negatively, thus biasing his/her evaluation of policy options. Moreover, actors that are highly affected by emotions are especially likely to resort to analogical reasoning: such actors "use historical analogies that fit in terms of sharing important characteristics or causal features with the present situation, yet analogies are often poorly chosen" (ibid: 141). In addition, such actors tend to be particularly biased against counterfactual thinking, which "may be overdetermined despite the potential positive consequences of counterfactual analysis, which includes giving people a sense of control in otherwise stressful situations" (ibid: 143). Such digressions from regular rational reasoning lead to the actor affected by identity-based emotions having an especially strong motivation to achieve his/her goal. Oyserman (2015) argues that when one conceives of a certain goal as relevant to his/her identity, it affects his/her judgement about its difficulty/achievability. More specifically (ibid: 3), [s]ince actors feel that identity-congruent conduct will feel right Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 82 (easy to do), yet taking action is often difficult, requiring both focused attention and inhibition of the impulse to do something else, interpretation of experienced difficulty matters. If an action feels identity-congruent, then experienced difficulty in engaging in it will reinforce the identity-congruent interpretation, so that the difficulty will be interpreted as meaning that the action is important and meaningful. Conversely, if an action feels identity-incongruent, then experienced difficulty in engaging in it will reinforce the identity-incongruence interpretation, so that the difficulty will be interpreted as meaning that the action is pointless and "not for me" (or if the incongruence is with a social identity, "not for people like me"). Relevantly to IR, the idea of identity-based motivation implies that identity (and consequently, emotions associated with it) may be an intervening casual mechanism that impacts on one's actions-in other words, identification alone may determine an actor's behaviour (for a similar point, see Sasley 2011: 463). Naturally, this happens only when one perceives a certain policy as relevant to his/her identity. The identification argument does not mean "that the group is the orientation point at all times. Rather, . . . [it] only becomes relevant under certain circumstances, when social categorization is activated by cues that make the intergroup categorization more salient than the individual sense of self" (ibid: 458). Urrestarazu (2015: 137) refers to this as the "performative dimension" of identity which rests on the premise that actors (or representatives of 'foreign policy actors', that is, individuals) might advert to several different possible narratives in a given situation – like a person that can consider himself to be a father, son, political scientist and European and German citizen simultaneously; yet the specific constellation of these narratives is entirely situational and determined by the situation-specific interaction with others. Hence, this dimension represents a synthetization of several (potentially different) narratives into one meaningful 'self', constituted in a specific situation in which foreign policy is put into practice. What is also important, B's change of identity as a result of objectively negative interactions with A is possible, but, as Chafetz et. al. (1998: 12) argue, IR actors do it "reluctantly and with difficulty," for such a change is impeded by two identity defense mechanisms. One is "the need for predictability and consistency," which thwarts the ability to realise and deal with the stimuli that are at variance with B's sense of self. Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 83 Another one is a psychological need for "a minimal level of stability of expectations." Identities are a sort of schemas that resist easy alterations due to the perseverance effect, which takes place because a schema improves cognitive efficiency by drawing attention to information that is compatible with one's earlier categorisations, while the information incompatible with them is likely not to get considered by him/her (ibid: 11-12). Not only positive emotions towards A, but also negative emotions towards the Other tend to be long-lasting and hard to change. According to Stein (2013: 208), "[actors] are motivated to form and maintain images of an enemy as part of a collective identity even in the absence of solid, confirming evidence of hostile intentions." For instance, such a negative emotion as fear of the Other may be continuous over time only because of its instances in the past. On this point, Crawford (2000: 140-141) argues that simply "thinking about a past fearful event may cause a person to feel fearful in the present." Emotions also may generate actors' bias regarding threat perception, no matter if the threat actually exists or not: in this respect, evolutionary biology highlights that emotions perform an adaptive function, stating that "humans are hardwired to detect threats so that they can increase the likelihood of surviving them" (ibid: 136). According to Öhman, "[t]he perceptual system is likely to be biased in the direction of a low threshold for discovering threat. . . . [T]he system is biased sometimes to evoke defense in actually non-threatening contexts" (cited in Crawford 2000: 136). Likewise, B's tangible identity-based bias in favour of A is resultant not only from strong in-group emotions, but also negative emotions-such as fear and/or anger-towards the Other (obviously, in the cases when this negative Other is present). This naturally affects decision-making by impacting, for example, on risk assessment. Empirical research shows that decision-makers with negative moods tend to exaggerate the odds of negative occurrences and underrate the odds of positive occurrences; contrariwise, decision-makers with positive moods overstate the likelihood of positive occurrences and consistently underrate the odds of negative occurrences (Crawford 2000: 143). Furthermore, "actors with positive affect tend to be more cautious in situations where a significant loss is highly likely and more accepting of risk if the perception of risk is low" (ibid: 144). Among Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 84 particular negative emotions, anger is conducive to stereotypical and prejudicial thinking about outgroups (Renshon & Lerner 2012: 3). Also, anger "is associated with optimistic risk assessments," that is, angry actors tend to think that "they will overcome whatever obstacle stands in their way" (ibid). Fear, for its turn, is known to impact on actors' risk-assessment: as phrased by Stein (2013: 204), "fear prompts uncertainty and risk-averse action, while anger prompts certainty and risk acceptance." Moreover (ibid: 203), [p]eople feel more pain from losses than they feel pleasure from equivalent gains. It is this asymmetry in feeling which underlies decision makers' efforts to avoid loss. Fear is such a powerful emotional experience in part because the pain of loss is commensurately greater than the pleasure of equivalent gain. It is this kind of dynamic, for example, that has led decision makers to use their weapons early-sometimes starting a war-rather than risk the loss of these weapons later on. This is the most dangerous dynamic of escalation that scholars have identified, a dynamic that is very difficult to control until leaders feel reassured that their military capabilities will survive a debilitating first strike. Examples of emotional attraction in IR include the Baltics' and Georgia's alignments to the EU, the overall logic behind which, as some case studies argue (Berg & Ehin 2009, Gvalia et. al. 2013, Kakachia & Minesashvili 2015), has been generally inconsistent with the rationale of cost-benefit analysis, but instead, strongly identity-driven and coupled by simultaneous "othering" of Russia. Another example is Serbia's approach vis-à-vis Russia that I analyse in detail in Chapter 4. 3.3.4. "Rational" Attraction The second, "rational" type of attraction is based on expert power, the weight of which varies with the extent of the knowledge or perception that B ascribes to A within a certain sphere; this ascription may pertain to A's expertness compared with B's subjective knowledge and/or an absolute standard (French & Raven 1959: 163). Illustrations of this kind of attraction in IR include, for example, countries' aspirations to learn from other states' experience of political or economic reforms, implement certain technological achievements etc. Nowadays, for instance, a number of developing countries are copying the Chinese developmental model, based on a combination of liberal economic policies and authoritarian one-party Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 85 governance. To quote one commentator, "from Vietnam to Syria, from Burma to Venezuela, and all across Africa, leaders of developing countries are admiring and emulating what might be called the China Model" (quoted in Zhao 2010: 419). According to French and Raven, the scope of this sort of attraction is more demarcated compared to that of emotional attraction. First, they argue that expert power impacts on B's "cognitive structure and probably not on other types of systems" (1959: 163). The word "probably" is crucial here: as I mentioned above, recent neuropsychological studies of emotions prove the inseparability of emotion from cognition, so it seems fair to mitigate French and Raven's statement by saying that while both cognition and emotion are present in both types of attraction, emotional attraction is determined by emotions, while the rational attraction is determined by cognition.47 Second, the logic of rational attraction presupposes that B views A as possessing superior knowledge in particular spheres, and therefore, the scope of A's power over B is mainly bounded to those spheres (ibid 1959: 164). In international politics, this often reveals itself, for example, in autocracies' readiness to follow the West's recommendations concerning economic and social reforms and their simultaneous rejection to liberalise domestic political regimes (for a relevant example, see Chapter 5). Moreover, the logic of rational attraction implies that if A attempts to exercise its power in relation to B beyond its scope, it is likely to undermine B's confidence in A and, consequently, decrease A's expert power (ibid: 164). Again, this trend is especially noticeable in relations between autocracies and Western democracies. Since the former often strive only for economic, but not political changes, they usually oppose the West's democracy and human rights promotion. Sometimes, fierce and active democracy promotion tends to worsen the overall power of democracies over autocracies, including in the economic sphere. In this regard, some commentators note that in the 2000s, Putin's Russia was viewing the EU as a great source for its own economic modernisation, expressing readiness to cooperate with the bloc and learn from its experience in that sphere. Yet, the EU's 47 In fairness to this interpretation, French and Raven also seem to have acknowledged the role of emotions in expert power: later in their article, they argued that expert power necessitates both B's perception of A's knowledge and B's trust towards A-while both perceptions and trust are rooted in emotion as well as cognition (see Mercer 2010, Stein 2013). Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 86 constant push for human rights and democracy impaired the Kremlin's view of bloc as a whole, which was one of the factors that have eventually sapped bilateral economic ties triggering a general rise of anti-Westernism in Russia (Balcer & Petrov 2012, Póti 2002, Zagorski 2013). As distinguished from "emotional" attraction, where affective ties between B and A make it possible that B's positive evaluation of A persists even despite negative experience of bilateral interaction, in the case of rational attraction, A's unsuccessful exercise of power tends to decrease this actor's attractiveness in the eyes of B relatively fast. To illustrate, the IMF's inability to effectively deal with the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2001-2002 Argentine great depression have had a long-term negative impact on the reputation of the fund. While before the crises, Asian and Latin American countries had been prone to borrow from the fund and stick to its conditions, after the crises, those countries largely turned to new donors and created new regional funds in order to avoid dealing with the IMF in the future (Weisbrot 2007). Also, French and Raven (1959: 164) state that expert power generates a new cognitive structure that is originally comparatively contingent on A,48 but is likely to become less dependent over time. What is also important, in rational attraction, the level of power dependence on A is not influenced by the degree of observability, as it happens in the case of hard power. An apt illustration of this point is Mongolia's democratisation which, albeit initiated from inside-unlike Central and Eastern Europe, Mongolia did not have an outward pull in the form of accession to the EU-was still highly dependent on assistance coming from external donors, such as the US, Japan and Germany. However, ultimately Mongolia has managed to build 48 French and Raven (1959: 163-164) distinguish between expert power based on the initial credibility of A in the eyes of B and informational influence grounded on characteristics of the content of actual communication (the logic of the argument or the self-evident facts). In his later publications, Raven categorises the latter into a separate power base, calling it "information power" and arguing that unlike the former, it entails a socially independent change in B's conduct, in which B would entirely accept/internalise the alteration and A would become inconsequential (Raven 1993: 232). However, given that in IR context, the cases of this "pure" persuasion are far between, I do not discriminate between the two types of expert power. In my fairness, a number of psychologists also prefer applying French and Raven's initial five-base typology. Wood (2014: 39), for example, notes that albeit many papers raised certain criticism of French and Raven's model "in terms of definitional and theoretical vagueness," their typology is still considered as successful and in fact, "most empirical work continues to focus on the original, five-base model." Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 87 quite a stable consolidated democracy which functions well without a substantial external influence (Fritz 2008). Remarkably, it is currently one of the few Asian countries that Freedom House (2017) marks as "free." Notably, rational attraction may be confused with reward-based hard power, for they share a number of empirical characteristics. Both have a relative nature, that is, in both cases, the strength of A's power over B depends on whether there are other actors that can provide B with an equal (or greater) desired reward or knowledge/skills. Both end when B no longer perceives A as having them. On B's part, both presuppose pragmatic, instrumental behaviour towards A (what is known in social sciences as "logic of consequentiality," see March & Olsen 2006) and if their mutual interactions go successfully, both may eventually lead to a rise in A's attraction in B's eyes. However, different between them is the psychological situation which exists for B. Consistently with one of the above-mentioned definitions of attraction, social attraction presupposes B's thinking, feeling and behaving positively toward A, while reward-based hard power includes only the third. Therefore, if we consider imaginary B that cooperates with A only for rewards, then the sole reason why this B would treat such A positively is the positive sanction A can provide, while at the same time, A may loath and despise all the qualities related to B. On the other hand, if B cooperates with A only because of the needed knowledge and competence A possesses, this would mean there is at least one area where A has a positive image in B's eyes. Furthermore, the rationale behind reward-based hard power implies its dependency on A's ability to administer a reward and accordingly, his/her desire to provide B with such a reward. This is not the case in rational attraction, whose logic implies that B considers A to be an expert no matter if A wants it. Hence, in the case of rewards, both A and B need each other, while in the case of rational attraction, it is only B who necessarily wants to interact with A, while vice versa may or may not be at play. All in all, at the empirical level, a B driven solely by rational attraction shows a higher own initiative to cooperate with A than a B driven solely by rewards. Moreover, in case of negative interaction experience with A, a B guided only by rational attraction turns round its previously friendly behaviour toward A to a lesser degree than a B guided only by rewards. Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 88 3.3.5. "Social" Attraction The last, "social" type of attraction, rests on legitimate power which has its origin in B's internalised values prescribing him/her that A is in a legitimate position to influence him/her and moreover, s(he) is obliged to accept this influence (French & Raven 1959: 159). In this case, B's acceptance of A's power may be explicitly reflected in his/her statements which would largely use such formulations as "should," "ought to," "has a right to" etc (ibid). In this regard, two points are noteworthy. First, social attraction has a normative nature with norms being defined as "standards of appropriate behaviour for actors with a given identity" (Finnemore & Sikkink 1998: 891) or "collective expectations for the proper behavior of actors within a given identity" (Katzenstein 1996: 5). Accordingly, especially relevant for social attraction are not official rules (international treaties, charters etc), but informal norms of conduct to which IR actors adhere in their foreign policies. Second, as the aforementioned definitions show, whether or not B follows such norms depends on his/her role identity and self-understanding. However, unlike emotional attraction, social attraction does not stem from B's identification with A. Rather, in this case, B's positive assessment of and behaviour towards A proceeds from the rules that B deems as proper to stick to. On the basis of empirical studies, Raven (1993: 234-235, 2008: 4) singles out four qualities that produce legitimate power, namely position, reciprocity, equity and responsibility. Legitimate position power originates in a social norm suggesting that people obey those who occupy a superior status in a certain social structure. The instances of such structures in human life include relations between supervisors and students, parents and children, older and younger people etc (ibid). In IR, such sort of power manifests itself, for instance, in the so-called "neocolonialism," that is, the privileged position former mother countries enjoy in relations with their erstwhile colonies. For example, the well-known term Françafrique denotes France's advantaged position in economic and financial relations with its one-time colonies as well as Paris' informal right to politically and militarily intervene into their domestic affairs. These privileges may or may not be reflected in formal agreements, but they are always informally recognised in those countries at the domestic level Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 89 (Martin 1985). As Omar Bongo49's often-cited quote suggests, "Gabon without France is like a car with no driver. France without Gabon is like a car with no fuel" (quoted in Agyeman 2014: 103). In other cases, such informal legitimate position power may have cultural roots. For instance, the regional leadership of Saudi Arabia derives, inter alia, from its being, at least to a certain extent, the informal leader of all Sunnis (Dazi-Heni 2014, Kamrava 2011). Legitimacy of reciprocity presupposes that if A does something that benefits B, then B should feel obliged to repay (Raven 1993: 234, 2008: 4). With respect to IR, reciprocity first emerged in the studies of neoliberal scholars (e.g. Axelrod 1984, Keohane 1986) who regarded it as the attempt of selfish rational states to engage in cooperation so as to avoid future retaliation irrespective of the fact that the Prisoner's Dilemma game dictates them to detect. However, as Larson (1988) shows, their perspective used to overlook the psychological base of reciprocity. Contending that "contrary to game theory, policymakers do not assume that the enemy is rational" (ibid: 285), she argues that instead, decision-makers always try to understand the underlying motives behind the other side's moves and what really counts is whether they perceive, interpret those moves as cooperative or defective. Drawing on psychological research on reciprocity, she shows that B is more likely to reciprocate those favors of A which (s)he perceives to have been done freely and/or represented a sacrifice to A. As she puts it, "foreign policy officials . . . are impressed by concessions which are both intentional and relatively costly to the other side, because these factors evidence good intentions" (ibid: 292, see Bogumil 2002 for an example of a case study employing psychological approach to reciprocity to IR). Legitimacy of equity may be understood as "righting a wrong," sticking to a compensative norm (Raven 1993: 234-235, 2008: 4). In IR, this manifests itself, for instance, in interstate apologies which have recently enjoyed some scholarly attention (e.g. Cohen 2004, Daase et. al. 2016). Arguably, the significance of apologies for recipients and the manner in which they are supposed to be made considerably vary across cultures. For instance, while in the Chinese tradition, apology genuinely "proclaims the delinquent's subjugation to authority," the 49 President of Gabon in 1967-2009. Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 90 individualistic Anglo-Saxon tradition deems apology as only a formality entailing legal responsibility of the guilty side (Cohen 2004: 181-185). Cohen (ibid: 186-193) classifies diplomatic apologies into three types: 1) those expressing remorse and desire to atone for a deep injustice (e.g. the US and Canada officially apologised for interning citizens of Japanese origin during the WWII), 2) those expressing sorrow for a violation of international law, aiming to reinstate normal relations (e.g. in 1924, the Persian government paid the total of $170,000 to the US after Robert Imbrie, US consul general in Tehran, was killed in Tehran by a crowd while the Persian police and army were nearby) and 3) those called "diplomatic "nonapologies"; they contain regret but not remorse, refusing to admit legal responsibility (e.g. this is what the UK did in 1980 after the British television company ATV showed the documentary Death of a Princess containing the episode in which a Saudi princess was executed for adultery). Cohen (ibid: 193-195) considers apologies to be neither a necessary, nor sufficient a condition for reconciliation, simultaneously pointing out that, although states are just legal abstractions and apologies can never mean for them the same as what they mean for people, they are still of great use for normalising interstate relations. Recent Apology and Reconciliation in International Relation: The Importance of Being Sorry (Daase et. al. 2016) provides a number of case studies exemplifying how apologies might contribute to the normalisation of bilateral ties (e.g. Germany and Israel, see also Chapter 6 in this thesis) and, contrariwise, how refusals to apologise may put paid to mutual diplomatic relations (e.g. Armenia and Turkey). Finally, legitimacy of responsibility, or in Raven's words (1993: 235, 2008: 4), "power or the powerless," implies that B has some obligation to facilitate those dependent on him/her and/or those unable to aid themselves. To illustrate, this power seems to be one of the factors that accelerated the creation of the State of Israel. Bell (2001: 171) argues that before and during the WWII, Britain was inconsistent on the establishment of the Jewish state, while in the aftermath of it, due to the "wave of sympathy" toward the persecuted European Jews, the UK came under growing stress to allow Jews' immigration into Palestine, especially from the US. On a smaller scale, a good example of this kind of power is international assistance received by the states facing natural disasters, mass epidemics, terrorist Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 91 attacks etc. French and Raven's description of legitimate power also sheds some light on the empirical characteristics of social attraction. First of all, its scope is usually specific and narrow, though the authors contend some culturally established bases of legitimacy may be broader (1959: 160-161). Like the other two types of attraction, social attraction does not depend on the degree of A's observability and, similarly to what happens in rational attraction, is likely to diminish if A attempts to employ his/her power over B beyond its scope (ibid: 161). Moreover, in the case of social attraction, the alteration of B's behaviour may originally highly depend on A, but later become more autonomous (ibid). This is determined by the logic of how values function. A's induction activates the values and relates them to the affected sphere, but over time, because B's values have a greater stability than the environment, this new conduct of B can become comparatively steadfast and consistent through cases and need no further intervention by A (ibid). Importantly, in the IR context, particular about "social" attraction is the weight of A's power over B. To start with, norm compliance in general seems to be a hotly debatable topic in the field. A pure rationalist approach totally denies the possibility that IR actors may pursue normative foreign policies. Thompson (1980: 179), for instance, contends that states "define international morality to coincide with the demands of national survival" and hence, norms "are peremptory only when national interest is not endangered." An alternative view holds that actors may act in accordance with norms alone if they conceive of them as legitimate. To illustrate, Björkdahl (2002: 22) argues that [a] sophisticated understanding of foreign policy, necessary for ethical reflection, will avoid the assumption that moral principles are merely reflections of state interests, practices and structures and, ultimately, a reflection of power. Moral principles are moral because they are norms that can be deployed independently and transform aspects of international politics. An ethical foreign policy is based ideally on norms and rules rooted in domestic and international moral values. The more settled the norm, and the broader the consensus on the moral values that underpins the norm, the more influential it will be on interests, individual actors' behaviour and the collective practices of like-minded actors. In fairness to this statement, there are case studies showing that in single Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 92 actions, actors may be guided by norms alone in the absence of substantial instrumental benefits or a strong identification with the object of policies. Glanville (2016), for example, interprets Obama's decision to push Resolution 1971 in the UN Security Council50 as an illustration of the effect of the R2P norm. Instances of purely-or, at least, predominantly-norm-driven overall foreign policies are rare, but still can be found, for example, in the studies on Germany's Ostpolitik in the 1960s onward (Cordell & Wolff 2005, 2007) and Sweden's foreign policy since its accession to the EU (Brommesson 2010). A major problem here is that discerning normatively guided conduct is always complicated, since if one's behaviour corresponds to a norm, it does not yet mean that it is the norm that inspired that behaviour. Indeed, norm compliance may be coincidental or, as Glanville (2016: 188) argues, actors can sometimes act in accordance with the norm "for instrumental reasons within the parameters of socially acceptable behaviour rather than accept the reputational costs of ongoing violation." Some case studies confirm this point. For instance, while the norm of moral responsibility presupposes that the more someone is in need, the more help (s)he should get, Fink and Redaelli's study (2009) shows this does not seem to be the case in IR. Their quantitative analysis of 400 cases of natural disasters concludes that in providing assistance to damaged states, actors tend to be more generous towards former colonies, geographically closer, politically less affine and oil exporting countries. They also found multiple evidence for bandwagoning, that is, actors being induced by their partners to provide aid. In a similar vein, DuBois (2015: 19) discovered that by October 2015, the campaign on fighting the outbreak of ebola in West Africa had received $3.75bn from a wide variety of donors. This is nine times as great as the sum of money allocated to deal with the consequences of the 2015 Nepal earthquake, though the latter entailed far more considerable losses and destructions. One can, perhaps, agree with Glanville (2016: 188) that it is fair to speak about a purely norm-guided behaviour only "when an actor chooses to comply in the absence of significant social pressures or clear material or strategic interests for 50 That resolution, passed on 3 March 2011, ordered the UNMIL to recall its military staff envisaging security for the Special Court for Sierra Leone, reposing the responsibility for security with the police of Sierra Leone. Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 93 doing so."51 Björkdahl (2002: 22-23) usefully suggests that the main role norms play in foreign policies is that [they] help define goals and purposes of states, they affect actors' interests and the way actors connect their preferences to policy choices . . . [and] they create permissive conditions for action and establish the boundaries for foreign policy deliberation and execution. At the same time, the impact of norms alone on foreign policies tends to be limited and, while norms often affect foreign policies, they rarely determine them. As she further argues, [u]ltimately, the potential for a norm-based foreign policy strategy is enabled and constrained by a world order shaped by material conditions, institutions and ideas. There are profound limits on the moral nature of foreign policy because of structural constraints and ideological commitments within states as well as within international society (ibid: 23). Psychologists argue that actors easily follow norms when they do not contradict their self-interest and they tend to try to avoid adhering to them otherwise. Drawing on insights from political psychology, Shannon (2000) ambitiously argues that "norms are what states make of them." Importantly, he generally disagrees with the realist idea that states hold to norms merely when they benefit them. Instead, he contends that IR actors are inclined to follow norms, a predisposition stemming from their three basic psychological needs, that is, "(1) organize and simplify reality for the purpose of effective action; (2) build and maintain social approval for one's peers; and (3) maintain and enhance one's self-image and esteem" (ibid: 298). Nonetheless, in the case of value conflicts, i.e., situations in which norm prescriptions are at variance with an actor's interests, (s)he frequently feels justified to violate them if (s)he is able to situationally interpret them in a way that will make him/her feel exempt from conforming with their prescriptions (see Figure 11). To sell a norm violation to the audience, actors tend to resort to apologies, denials, excuses or justifications (ibid: 304).52 51 Incidentally, similarly to Nye, Glanville (2016: 189-190) asserts discerning the impact of norms is easier in cases of their violation than compliance. 52 Another line of research links norm violation more to leaders' personality types than the norm-interest dichotomy. According to this logic, leaders' likeliness to violate norms is determined by Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 94 Figure 11. Framework for Decision: Conform or Violate? Source: Shannon 2000: 301. This argument is in tune with what broader social sciences research suggests. Göbel, Vogel and Weber (2013: 39-40, emphasis added) conclude their profound literature review on reciprocity in social sciences and psychology by arguing that [it] documents not only that reciprocity is broadly relevant to the social science, as indicated by the number of related publications in various disciplines, but also that both benefit (i.e., utility) and morality are operative as motives for action, with benefit being the dominant one. A similar assertion can be found in March & Olsen (2006: 705). Having analysed multiple empirical instances of logic of consequentiality (i.e., behaviour based on cost-benefit analysis) and logic of appropriateness (that is, normand identity-driven behaviour) in social relations, the two scholars conclude that rules are likely to be abandoned when rule following creates catastrophic outcomes, and in periods of radical environmental change, where past arrangements and rules are defined as irrelevant or unacceptable. Similarly, recourse to rules and standard operating procedures is likely when consequential calculations are seen as having produced catastrophes. their sensitivity to the political environment and readiness to outwit internal institutional and normative restrictions (Shannon & Keller 2007). Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 95 Discussion The chapter has put forward an analytical framework characterising the soft/hard power dichotomy. Moving forward Nye's above-cited assertion that A's power vis-à-vis B can rest on coercion, reward and attraction, I addressed these phenomena in psychological terms from B's perspective. Given that there are three pathways to generate an effect consistent with the psychological definition of attraction, overall, the study came up with five power bases, that is, five power-producing causal mechanisms, two of them relating to hard and three to soft power. Their most important traits can be briefly recapitulated as follows (Table 12). Power Base Weight53 Scope Durability H A R D Coercion A's capability to punish B and B's perception of that capability Depends on the strength of A's capability to introduce a punishment and B's perception of the punishment's magnitude Specific to the areas where A can punish B and B perceives A as able to punish (the latter tends to go beyond those areas) As long as A is able to punish B and B is threatened of the punishment Reward A's capability to reward B and B's perception of that capability Depends on the strength of A's capability to introduce a reward and B's perception of the reward's magnitude Specific to the areas where A can reward B and B perceives A as able to reward As long as A is able to reward B and B perceives A as able to reward S O F T Rational attraction B's perception of A's competence/ knowledge in an area relevant to B Depends on the strength of A's competence as perceived by B. Tends to be initially strong, later hinges on the quality of mutual interactions Specific to the areas of A's competence as perceived by B As long as B considers A as competent (in absolute and/or relative terms) Social attraction B's internalised values Depends on the strength of B's values. Often weak if what the values prescribe contradicts B's perceived self-interest Specific to the areas where B accepts A's legitimacy to influence B's conduct. Depending on the base of legitimacy, may be broader Relatively steadfast due to the stability of B's values Emotional attraction B's identification with A Depends on the strength of B's identification with A. Often goes against what others perceive as B's "common sense" self-interest Not limited to a particular area and depends on the strength of B's sense of identification Relatively steadfast due to B's emotion-laden trust toward A Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 96 Table 12. Characteristics of Hard and Soft Power in Subject-Centered Terms. What advantages does this framework bring about? First, it shows that the mechanism which the neoliberal account of soft power presents as "attraction," in fact, conflates three distinct causal mechanisms that may generate A's power vis-à-vis B differently from and independently of one another. Hence, Nye's statement that soft power's "[b]asic resources include culture, values, legitimate policies, a positive domestic model, a successful economy, and a competent military" (2011b: 99) fails to discriminate between various power bases that, considered in psychological terms, produce A's power over B in diverse manners. Importantly, neither of them contradicts the social psychological perspective on attraction and hence, contrary to Hall's call to repudiate it, this framework shows that it is possible to integrate these three bases under the umbrella term "attraction" provided that a researcher understands which causal mechanism(s) is/are at play in his/her empirical case study. Second, the framework demonstrates that depending on the actual mechanism that produces attraction, its behavioural impacts may differ in weight, scope and durability. Not only does this matter from a theoretical viewpoint, but it also enriches Nye's policy-oriented perspective on soft power. Indeed, for A's policymakers, the accurate comprehension of their country's power with regard to the target actor is certainly needed for the correct determination of their future expectations from and policies toward that actor. Third, the framework allows distinguishing between hard and soft power, concurrently furthering the debate on relational and structural forces in soft power relationship. Indeed, Table 12 visibly demonstrates that hard power has both relational and structural nature, presupposing that a change in B's behaviour in A's favour is contingent on two factors, namely A's ability to administer respective sanctions ("surveillance" or "observability," as French and Raven formulated it) and B's perception of that ability. By contrast, soft power is structural, implying that 53 Importantly, in French and Raven's description, the rule "[t]he stronger the basis of power, the greater the power" applies to all five bases (1959: 165). This column "Weight" in this table simply endeavours to cover certain specificities, especially those pertaining to the IR field. Moreover, French and Raven contend that the rule "[a]ny attempt to utilise power outside the range of power will tend to reduce the power" (ibid) also holds to each power base, which is also to be remembered. Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 97 what gives A a power asset with respect to B is rooted in B's knowledge/perception about a certain quality related to A. Importantly, relational forces also play a certain role in soft power, which varies from being little in the case of emotional, greater in social and quite significant in rational attraction. However, while A may try to influence B's perception, in no sense does (s)he control it and hence, the presence of relational power is not a necessary condition for attraction to happen. Therefore, dependence on A's observability and structural/relational character seem to require should be apparently treated as definitional and not empirical characteristics of soft and hard power, as scholars have presented them so far. This argument aids in shedding light on a number of other soft power related issues. It facilitates, for instance, to clarify the aforementioned debate between Nye and Baldwin on the contingency of the two types of power on B.54 On the one hand, it illustrates the correctness of Baldwin's argument that perception matters for coercion as well as attraction. At the same time, it shows that Nye is also intuitively right in that in the case of soft power, A's actions are not as crucial for A's power vis-à-vis B as they are in the case of hard power. In addition, Baldwin (2016: 167) finds it puzzling why Nye rejects to include exchange relations, and especially relations of social exchange, into soft power, given that they embrace "no coercion, no formal negotiation, no explicit contract, and no money." Again, my framework treats this question as definitional rather than empirical: regardless of its power base, attraction functions upon B's own, internalised forces, while hard power represents B's compliance and is rooted in induced forces. Therefore, reciprocity, a norm of social exchange, can be regarded as a form of soft power only if the reason why B reciprocates comes from his/her internalised values rather than imposed by A. Put differently, to qualify as attraction, B's reciprocation should, in accordance with the definition, be coupled with B's positive evaluation of A. Finally, the point about the essentiality of A's surveillance for hard power perfectly fits with Nye's often-cited assertion that investing more in soft power will allow countries to economise resources in the future. Fourth, this framework is more adequate than Nye's for studying a soft power 54 It is to be recalled that Nye considers soft power as more dependent on the subject than hard power, while Baldwin argues that coercion is not less dependent on B's perception than is attraction. Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 98 relationship in which B is a geopolitically small and weak actor and A is a big and influential one. As was noted earlier, Nye's agent-centered approach to soft power and its presentation as a strategic tool have made some draw parallels between and even equate soft power and hegemony, although perceptions of this sort may not be accurate. Indeed, neoliberals' depiction of attraction as A's ability, coupled with the emphasis they put on A's skills and instruments, are likely to convey the impression to some readers that soft power is an asset available primarily to strong and rich actors. Presentation of soft power in terms of psychological mechanisms simplifies finding instances where the competence or legitimacy of a geopolitically small A would attract a relatively greater B. It is noteworthy that a three-element typology of attraction from B's viewpoint corresponds to a long tradition in psychology that divides human mind into cognition, affection and conation (for details, see Hilgard 1980), and respectively, human attitudes into cognitive, affective and conative (Eagly & Chaiken 1993). This idea is reflected in multiple fields of social sciences as well. To give some instances, Habermas (1984) separates reality into objective, social and subjective worlds, Eisenegger and Imhof (2008) divide reputation into functional, social and expressive types, Risse (2000) singles out three logics of social action, namely logic of arguing, logic of consequentialism and logic of appropriateness. More closely to the IR field, a similar framework is applied in European integration studies, where researchers mark out three strategies that EU and national elites use to legitimise European integration in the eyes of citizens (Eriksen & Fossum 2004, Sjursen 2006), to wit, instrumental (or logic of consequentiality), contextual (logic of appropriateness) and communicative (logic of justification). Interestingly, social psychologists that study interpersonal attraction classify its types along with similar lines: McCroskey and McCain (1972), for instance, suggest that it embraces three dimensions, namely social attraction, physical attraction, and task attraction. This study, however, leaves a number of questions unanswered, making them possible topics for future research. First, the neoliberal approach is labelled as too static with some arguing for the need of a more dynamic and process-oriented approach which would "pay more attention to the constructional mechanisms and processes associated with soft power in addition to the roles played by different Soft and Hard Power: Toward a More Rigorous Framework 99 agents" (Kudryavtsev 2014: 7). My framework allows disentangling this problem into a number of sub-problems, some of which, such as norm internalisation (e.g. Finnemore & Sikkink 1998) and identity dynamics (Sasley 2011: 464), are researched both inside and outside IR. A related interesting question is how (if anyhow) one power base may evolve into another, an answer to which would require an extensive review of psychological and IR literature. The second issue that remains unheeded concerns combinations of power bases, which is significant since in empirical instances power bases are most often present in junctions rather than in complete isolation of one another and hence, the characteristics given in Table 13 should be considered in relation to empirical cases probabilistically rather than deterministically. Since French and Raven created their framework, several psychologists have studied how various combinations of power bases produce outcomes (Wood 2014: 39); yet, because the findings of such research are highly fieldand context-dependent (Krause & Kearney 2006), a direct integration of their insights into IR appears hardly possible. At this stage, following March and Olsen's recommendations regarding logic of appropriateness and logic of consequentiality (2006: 703-705), it seems just to argue that 1) it is important not to subsume one power base as a special case of another, for this would deny the peculiarities of each of them, 2) it is also significant not to suppose any strong hierarchy among them, for this assumption is not supported by empirical studies, 3) it is fair, however, to assume that a more dominant power base will dominate the less dominant ones, 4) finally, whether actors' behaviour is norm-driven, identity-driven or calculation-driven also depends on the resources available to them. A Note on Methodology and Case Selection 100 PART TWO. ATTRACTION BETWEEN IR ACTORS: CASE STUDIES A Note On Methodology and Case Selection Some theoretical perspectives on decision-making in IR conceive of actors' ideas/identities solely as "simply another rather than the causal factor" (quoted in Parsons 2003: 11, emphasis in original), as something that can influence states' policies only together with instrumental considerations, assuming that "[it is] 'how much' questions [that] make all the difference" (ibid). This study, however, rests on the theoretical tradition that allows for the possibility that ideas/identities can determine states' foreign policies independently of self-interest (e.g. Parsons 2003; Tannenwald 2005; Tsygankov 2014). This tradition obviously does not rule out that many, if not most, foreign policies represent a combination of different kinds of motivations, however, given the goal of my research to show a link between B's psychological motives and the qualities of A's power with respect to B, I selected "most likely" cases, where the independent variables seem to be strongly pronounced. Following the rules of case selection, I chose cases on independent variables (George & Bennett 2005: 23, Levy 2008: 8-9) on the basis of both my prior knowledge as well as the preliminary review of media publications and research papers (George and Bennett 2005: 24). I selected Serbia's approach toward Russia as an instance of emotional attraction, because it is arguably complemented by the firm perception of closeness to Russians on the basis of being Slavic and Orthodox, which is deeply inherent in the national identity of Serbs and which is arguably even stronger than similar perceptions that can be encountered among some nations of the post-Soviet space. Concerning rational attraction, I selected Kazakhstan's policy vis-à-vis the EU, since, on the one hand, it is commonly described as being driven by pragmatic reasons and coupled with opposition to human rights and democracy promotion, but at the same time, unlike other post-Soviet autocracies whose friendly behaviours toward the EU appear driven mainly by short-term (geo-)political considerations, Kazakhstan's is accompanied by the seemingly genuine motivation of its government to use European experience for the country's A Note on Methodology and Case Selection 101 technological, economic and partially social modernisation (and hence, Brussels' power vis-à-vis Astana seems to follow the logic of rational attraction and cannot be easily reduced to reward power). As for social attraction, I opted for Germany's policy with respect to Israel for it is usually argued to be substantially affected by the moral factor, that is, the feeling of guilt for the Holocaust, which, furthermore, is stronger in comparison with the other states that once conducted similar crimes.55 All the three case studies in outline share identical steps of research process, namely, 1) showing that the case represents the declared kind of attraction, 2) demonstrating that the competing interpretations of B's behaviour toward A found in the literature are weaker compared to the one I suggest, 3) exhibiting that A's power over B corresponds to the characteristics of that type of attraction, 4) possibly giving relevant comparisons with the other two cases, 5) providing policy implications of the case study. Noteworthy is that while implementing step 1, aside from presenting the direct evidence supporting my argument, I also sometimes resort to confronting B's policy toward A with B's policy in relation to other actors, assuming that one can sensibly expect a good deal of consistency between B's goals and methods across various foreign policy vectors (Tannenwald 2005: 28-29, Tsygankov 2014: 27). Also, I devote certain attention to A's recognition of B's policy, assuming that a policy's viability hinges on whether the target audience acknowledges it as such (Tsygankov 2014: 27). Regarding alternative explanations, depending on the number and significance of those present in the literature, I either reflect on them in a separate section (chapters 4 and 6) or integrate them in other relevant places (chapter 5). Regarding sources used in case studies, for building my main arguments, I primarily rely on secondary ones (academic and think tank papers), using primary sources (documents, speeches and media publications) mostly for giving examples and drawing parallels. The usage and availability of sources ultimately determines the value of these case studies as independent research works. The Serbia-Russia case, which had not been formerly addressed from this angle in the scientific 55 One may contend that to ensure a better illustrative capacity, cases had to be selected in a manner such that there is either one A and three different Bs or one B and three different As or at least all the three cases belong to the same geopolitical region. Yet, given that the "most likely" cases I needed are few and far between in IR, I failed to choose my cases in any of these ways however hard I tried. A Note on Methodology and Case Selection 102 literature and where I use comparatively many primary sources, is of great worth as an autonomous research. The Kazakhstan-EU case also purports to hold a substantial value independently of this thesis, for it provides a critical review of numerous recent papers on various aspects of Kazakhstan's foreign policy, aiming to critically analyse them and, put metaphorically, allow seeing the forest for the trees. By contrast, the Germany-Israel case, where the role of values/self-interest in Berlin's conduct had been previously addressed in many papers and where my inability to speak German and Hebrew did not allow me to use sources in any of these languages, seems to be only of limited value as an autonomous paper. The usage of secondary sources allows me not only to save time for being able to perform three case studies within a short period of time, but also utilise the results of previously done research in my analysis, underpin my intuitive observations with conclusions made by other researchers, many of whom are genuine experts in those topics (particularly regarding the Germany-Israel case, about which I possessed very limited knowledge prior to starting working on it) and, finally, integrate papers written in Russian by Russian, Kazakh and Serbian authors, many of which had previously been somewhat overlooked by international IR scholarship. Careful about the possibility to repeat the analytical biases of those studies' authors (Levy 2008: 9), I try to draw on different types of papers (i.e., ones using diverse methods, belonging to various theoretical traditions and written by international researchers and ones coming from those countries) as well as analyse alternative explanations. Whilst the question "how B is attracted" constitutes a matter of theoretical concern, an important methodological concern is posed by the problem of "who exactly is attracted." In the context of IR, where actors A and B are mainly states and international organisations consisting of abundant social and political groups with dissimilar interests, the possibility of treating B as a unitary actor is questionable. Authors like Kearn (2011: 77-79) call for "unpacking" B by looking at its domestic policies, culture, institutions and other conditions in which a soft power relationship takes place. Strictly speaking, this point seems fair, yet, opening the Pandora box of states' complex structure would digress the study's focus from how soft power works to who participates in the power relationship. Ultimately, some A Note on Methodology and Case Selection 103 simplification of states' complex nature seems inevitable, while the question of how much accuracy can be sacrificed is to be decided by each particular scholar depending on the goal of his/her research. Most feasibly, attraction could be considered at the elite and societal levels, which not only stems from accounts theorising states as groups (see discussion on pp. 75-76), but is also proposed by Nye himself who distinguishes between a direct and an indirect models of attraction (2011b: 94-95, see Table 11). The former implies that B's political class directly gets attracted by A and then pursues a particular policy in its favour, while the latter presupposes that it is B's public that finds A attractive first, which creates an enabling (or, contrariwise, disabling) environment that stimulates B's government to carry out a certain policy to the advantage of A. Nye, nonetheless, did not provide any empirical evidence to support the two models, allowing his critics to question them by arguing that publics have little influence on foreign policy and thus, it seems sufficient for A to attract only B's decision-makers (Bially Mattern 2005: 611, Fan 2008: 153, Layne 2010: 56-57). In response, Nye (2011b: 96) agreed that public opinion tends to be weak, stating, however, that completely discarding its effect on decision-making would be excessively simplistic, for this would not factor in "direct effects, matters of degree, types of goals and interactions with other causes" (2010a: 218). Model 1 Direct effects Resources→government elites→attraction→elite decision and outcome Model 2 Indirect effects Resources→publics→attract/repel→enabling or disabling environment→elite decision Table 13. Two Models of Attraction. Source: Nye 2011b: 95. For my study, however, since the constructivist approach considers power in terms of behavioural outcomes, it is crucial to clarify the degree to which society can impact on foreign policy. A look at empirical studies reveals two relevant matters in this regard. First, the higher the perceived salience of a given foreign policy issue, that is, the comparative significance that the public attributes to it, the higher the chance that the public will try to affect their country's policy on it (for an A Note on Methodology and Case Selection 104 overview, Oppermann 2010: 5-6). Second, while empirical studies show that in democracies, public opinion generally constrains foreign policy in a number of ways (for an overview see Tomz et. al. 2017), the picture is far from clear as far as autocracies are concerned with some case studies arguing public opinion limits their foreign policies too, although less than in democracies (e.g. Ojieh 2015, Li & Chen 2018) and other studies concluding the opposite (e.g. Dosch 2006). Taking these into account, I take account of the societal level of attraction while analysing the Serbia and Germany cases: not only are these states democratic, but also a look at opinion polls and civil society activities (see sections 4.1 and 6.2) reveals a sizeable public interest in their policies toward Russia and Israel correspondingly. In Kazakhstan's case, I omit considering the public for two reasons. First, because it is an autocratic country and so, its society is comparatively less likely to be able to affect decision-makers. Second, nearly all the available data (including opinion polls) on Kazakhstani people's foreign policy views and their attitudes toward the EU come from pro-governmental sources and hence, are of limited reliability. The few available independent opinion polls date back to the 2000s and what is more, their reliability is also debatable, for 33-58% of their respondents reported Kazakhstani people's fear to freely express their views (IRI 2010: 20). "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 105 4. "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia "One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too." ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part II, 1883. Introduction On 5 October, 2000, the so-called "Bulldozer Revolution" overthrew Serbia's autocratic leader Slobodan Milošević, putting the end to the country's decade-long confrontation with the international community. Since then Serbia, like the other Western Balkan states, has pursued EU accession as its primary strategic goal, having achieved, to date, a great deal of success on this path. To illustrate, the country started its membership talks in January 2014, overtaking the region's all other countries except Montenegro. Yet, researchers widely describe Serbia's EU ambitions as instrumental, pragmatic and originated not in internalisation of European values, but in a mere desire to receive material benefits from the bloc (e.g. Subotić 2011, Stahl 2013, Radeljić 2014, Economides & Ker-Lindsay 2015). As one study notes, Serbs' support of EU integration "relies mostly on the assumption that merely joining brings great economic advantages, yet that great social or mental adjustments are supposedly not required to achieve this" (Dimitrijević 2009: 44). In this vein, scholars argue that Serbia and the EU have "entirely different identities, i.e. world views, perception of the state, political cultures and the meaning of international politics", characterising the country as a "problem child" of EU integration, stating that Serbia's accession to the bloc is "strategic" (Stahl 2013: 447), that is, the country technically adheres to all EU requirements, simultaneously undergoing no normative shift (Stahl 2013, Economides & Ker-Lindsay 2015). Both at the societal and elite levels, Serbia is arguably driven chiefly by short-term interests, a trend manifesting itself in voting behaviour (Schimmelfennig et. al. 2006: 94), public opinion surveys (Wohlfeld 2015: 5) and elite approach to foreign policy (ibid: 1). One paper posits that this stems from wider traditions of the country's political culture, stating that "[t]he word 'national interest' is easily appropriated in a Serb context, thus short-term tactical advantages and disadvantages are often presented as long-term interests, making it easy to change opinions about them" "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 106 (Dimitrijević 2009: 45). Against this backdrop, it appears interesting to delve into the underlying foundations of Serbia's attitude to Russia, a country presently acting as probably the most prominent challenger of the EU. In recent years, Russo-Serbian cooperation has strengthened to an unprecedentedly high level. Suffice it to say that economically, Serbia is currently the sole state outside the post-Soviet area which enjoys a free trade zone with Russia. As Đukić (2015: 35) notes, "[n]o other country than Serbia can boast of having such a widely open door to Eastern and Western integration markets, stretching from Vladivostok to Lisbon." Similarly, in the security sphere, Serbia is the only Western Balkan country and EU candidate which has signed a "strategic partnership" agreement with Russia, regularly conducts joint military exercises with that country and enjoys the status of a non-member observer in the Russia-led CSTO. In this chapter, however, I contend that for Serbia, its collaboration with Russia is primarily an emotion-laden identity-driven issue, with instrumental considerations to improve national security, economy etc being mainly peripheral, an approach that stems from the beliefs and values which are widely shared both at the societal and, to a slightly lesser extent, elite level. My argument does not imply that the bilateral cooperation gives Serbia zero objective gains-albeit whether Serbia receives rational benefits seems indeed questionable in many instances-rather, I maintain that, even where present, they hardly determine Serbia's rationale to hold friendship with Russia. Finally, I argue that the fact that Serbia strongly identifies with Russia, concurrently having limited rational considerations to cooperate, to a large extent determines the nature and peculiarities of Moscow's power vis-à-vis Belgrade. I develop my argument, using recent media publications, academic and think tank research articles on Serbian national identity, Europeanisation and foreign policy, including those authored by Russian and Serbian researchers. Chronologically, my discussion covers the entire post-Milošević period, principally focusing on the recent decade, when both Russo-Serbian cooperation and Russia-EU confrontation have been especially intensive. Structurally, my argumentation in outline corresponds to the key features of emotional attraction described in section 3.3.3. First, I show that both the Serbian society and political elite are especially "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 107 friendly towards Russia (section 4.1). Then, I discuss the recent trends in Serbian identity formation, showing that the West is constructed as an Other in the country's socio-political life and Serbia's attraction to Russia rises when the country finds itself in conflict with the West (section 4.2). Next, I elaborate on how the sense of trauma and victimisation contributes to Serbia's "othering" of the West and attraction to Russia (section 4.3). Then, I analyse Belgrade's behaviour toward Moscow against the background of Serbia's EU aspirations and the Kremlin's conduct toward Serbia, demonstrating that in its desire to be friends with Russia, Serbia tends to highly rely on historical justifications, sacrifice its rational interests, overrate the positive and ignore the negative experiences of the bilateral interaction (sections 4.4-4.6). Following that, I review alternative accounts of Serbia's motives to cooperate with Russia, showing their incompletenesses and drawbacks with respect to my explanation (section 4.7). In Discussion, I summarise the crux of my argument and utilise it to speculate about the possible behaviour of Serbia toward the EU and Russia. 4.1. Serbia's Identification with Russia: Society and Political Elite Multitudinous opinion polls exhibit Serbians' particular attachment to Russia, showing that they truly consider their ties with that country to be what Russian Deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin called "marriage for love" and not "marriage of convenience" (Helsinki Committee 2013: 8). Russia tops the list of Serbia's friendly states by a large margin (Helsinki Committee 2013: 7, Mihailović 2017), is perceived as number one country maintaining good relations with which is to Serbia's best interest (IRI 2015: 20-22) and caps the list of the countries that arguably influence the Serbian foreign policy positively (BCSP 2017: 16). Furthermore, Russia enjoys the most positive views of Serbians among all countries-far more positive than the EU (Bechev 2015: 3)-with Serbia's alliance with Russia being supported by them more than their country's accession to the EU (Szpala 2014: 8). In parallel, remarkable is high popularity Russian President Vladimir Putin has in Serbia among world leaders (Gallup International 2017: 7-10), being, according to one poll, the foreign leader Serbians trust most (New Serbian Political Thought 2015). This attitude also manifests itself in people's own-often exotic-initiatives: to illustrate, "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 108 in November 2016, the citizens of Adžince, a small village in Southern Serbia, voted to change their village's name to Putinovo (Hopkins 2017). A month earlier, a similar proposition came from the dwellers of the small Serbian town of Banstol who decided to dedicate to Putin a church under construction (Sputnik International 2016). Notably, the country's civil society also reflects this stand: reportedly, there are over a hundred pro-Russian NGOs and media in Serbia (Knezević 2017). Interestingly, Serbians do not seem to be clearly divided into the pro-EU and pro-Russian camps: in 2014, for example, 50% supported Serbia's EU accession and 70% closer relations with Russia (Torralba 2014: 2-3). Researchers generally state that Russia enjoys Serbians' support foreign policy issues, whereas when it comes to their own and their families' lives, Serbians tend to give preference to the EU (Atlagić 2015: 118, Simić 2017b): as formulated by Serbian sociologist Srdjan Bogosavljević, "[w]e [Serbs] love Russia, but we don't want to be part of Russia. And we don't like Europe, but we want to be part of Europe" (Brunwasser 2017). To give but a few examples, in 2015, more than 70% of Serbians wanted their children to live in the EU, while merely 17% preferred Russia (Nelayeva & Semenov 2015: 53). At the 2012 and 2016 parliamentary elections, the results of strongly pro-Russian parties never exceeded 20% of votes in total, whereas at the 2014 elections, those parties did not manage to enter the Parliament at all. In 2014, more than a half of respondents were opposed to a closer collaboration of Serbia with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (Atlagić 2015: 116). Similarly to the Serbian citizenry, the country's leaders tend to be notorious for praising Russia in general and Putin in particular. In the 1990s, the idea of Serbs being a traditionalist Orthodox nation was the base of the official state ideology with Milošević himself declaring that "[e]very Serb is looking with hope eastwards, is looking where the Russian sun comes out" (quoted in Schimmelfennig et. al. 2006: 84). Among Serbian leaders in the post-Milošević period, Russia's probably keenest supporter was Tomislav Nikolić, the country's President in 2012-2017, whose attitude to Russia is best reflected in such of his phrases as "the EU only blackmails, humiliates, seizes our territory, while Russia helps" (quoted in Subotić 2011: 322), "Serbia must join all economic alliances worldwide, which suit it, especially the alliances formed with Russia's participation," "[t]he only thing I love more than "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 109 Russia is Serbia" (Helsinki Committee 2013: 5), "Serbia...sees Russia as its major ally" (quoted in Wohlfeld 2015: 2) and, probably best of all, "When hard times come, a man remembers his mother, Serbia remembers Russia'' (quoted in Velojić 2017: 4) etc. Notably, Nikolić used to direct this sort of commendations not only toward Russia in general, but also Putin in particular: among his statements of this sort are such as "I wouldn't have won the election only if I had Vladimir Putin running for Serbia's presidency" (Helsinki Committee 2013: 3), "I would like you [Putin] to know that Serbia is Russia's partner in the Balkans...Serbia loves you. And you deserved this love by the manner you rule Russia" (ibid: 4) etc. Remarkably, even those Serbian leaders who enjoy the reputation of being pro-Western-such as the country's ex-President Boris Tadić and its current President Aleksandar Vučić-have made outstanding pro-Russian moves. It is Tadić who put forward a foreign policy doctrine naming Russia one of the "pillars" of Serbian foreign policy (Varga 2016: 191). Both Tadić and Vučić paid visits to the Kremlin during their reelection campaigns-officially, to discuss security and economic issues, but unofficially, to ensure Putin's support in the upcoming elections: Vučić, for instance, was noted to proudly state that he had met Putin "more than all others [the other candidates] combined" (Rudić 2017). Even incumbent Serbian PM Ana Brnabić-who, as an LGBT activist and an open lesbian, can hardly be expected to have personal pro-Russian attitudes-once said that the EU is Serbia's "partner" while Russia is Serbia's "friend" (B92 2017c). One may question the sincerity of these statements, deeming them as mere attempts to gain public approval. Indeed, the current Serbian political culture gives room for leaders to act opportunistically, attaching little value to ideas and changing their political affiliations throughout their careers. As a result, Serbian politicians' statements tend to contradict their real actions. For example, despite his pro-Russian statements, Nikolić and his administration "proved to be more committed to EU accession, both in word and deed, than anyone had expected" (Economides & Ker-Lindsay 2015: 1035), not to mention that his primary advisor during his 2012 electoral campaign was a US official who was also later instrumental in the government's formation (Helsinki Committee 2013: 5). Remarkably, after being elected, Nikolić paid his first official visit to Brussels and "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 110 only second to Moscow (B92 2012a). On the other hand, one can recall that initially, both Nikolić and Vučić started in the fiercely pro-Russian and nationalistic Serbian Radical Party, then left it to found the center-right Serbian Progressive Party which favours EU integration. All in all, stating that Serbia's leaders are generally more pragmatic than its society appears reasonable. Yet, the continuance and endurance of their pro-Russian statements, the fact that they are expressed by politicians belonging to various, sometimes opposite, camps as well as a more general logic of Serbia's approach to Russia (discussed below) indicate the rather high importance of identity considerations for Serbia's political elite. 4.2. The West as the Other This subheading may appear odd in relation to a state whose strategic goal is EU integration. Nonetheless, it seems to perfectly reflect the findings of recent studies which largely depict the contemporary Serbian identity as somewhat reminiscent of that of present-day Russia rather than compatible with European values. First, Serbs are commonly described as entrapped by and obsessed with their history, "stuck in a 19th-century world of nationalism" (Dulić 2011: 26), which tends to hamper their willingness to accept the realities of contemporary politics (Radeljić 2014: 254). Serbian political discourse is arguably highly influenced by the "perception of sanctity of territorial integrity" (Dimitrijević 2009: 42) and "[t]reating Serbia and Serbdom as one and the same" (ibid: 40), which, again, appears to date back to the 19-century principle of nation-state. Remarkably, scholars argue that in contemporary Serbia, "instead of describing and analyzing past reality, [history] became a kind of experimental science" (Stojanović 2011: 222) with official history textbooks presenting Serbs as "chosen people" who constantly fell victims of their neighbours and great powers throughout their history and never began any annexionist wars themselves (ibid: 228). Those textbooks are also argued to posit that both world wars started and finished in Serbia (ibid: 227) and endeavour to whitewash the Serbs who collaborated with Nazis in the WWII. With regard to this, Ramet (2010: 33) notes that "[n]owhere in Europe has there been such enthusiasm for the rehabilitation of Axis collaborators as in Serbia, and this desire to embrace the defeated side in World War Two is not without psychological and political "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 111 consequences." Second, Serbian identity in general seems to have undergone little substantial change since Milošević was cashiered. Domestically, it is still distinguished by the prevalence of culture of violence, the supremacy of economic sphere of life, social acceptance of bribery-on top of the standard set of traditionalist mentality including nationalism, clericalisation, traditional gender roles, enmity against homosexuality etc (Dulić 2011: 28-32). Internationally, Serbs keep ambitiously fancying themselves as the region's dominant power (Subotić 2011: 322). Importantly, in Serbia's case, inclination towards conservatism and collectivism can hardly be reduced to the lot of uneducated people, for it is shared by a great part of intellectuals who in recent years have been increasingly coming up with new intellectual theoretical accounts of "Serbianness" (Bianchini 2011: 98-99). Moreover, as Pešić (2009: 185-188) argues, Serbs have not fully assumed neither criminal-legal nor political nor moral responsibility for the Milošević regime's war crimes: since his overthrow, no lustration has taken place and his crimes tend to be "normalised" in the country's mainstream media with those responsible for them having been sent to the ICTY merely for technical reasons, due to international obligations. In this context, one can agree with Bianchini (2011: 78) that the West's general presumption in the 1990s that Serbian nationalism would be over once Milošević is defeated seems to have naïvely mistaken cause for effect. Indeed, while throughout the second half of the 20th century, most Western and Central European autocrats hardly enjoyed genuine domestic popularity, receiving public condemnation after being toppled, Milošević proved to be "more of an "elected autocrat" than a "dictator" (Schimmelfennig et. al. 2006: 84), getting criticised in contemporary Serbia principally for his inefficiency rather than immorality. As nicely summarised by Subotić (2011: 321), the predominant political narrative in post-Milošević Serbia rejected Milošević's wartime strategies as wrong and destructive; not because they caused great suffering and mass casualties in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, but because they economically, politically, and diplomatically devastated Serbia and denied it aspirations to regional domination. In other words, Milošević was not wrong to fight the wars; he was wrong to lose them. Notably, Serbs' attitude to EU accession is mostly neutral-positive, but again, "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 112 they largely associate the positive component with instrumental (in the first place, material) benefits. This becomes evident in opinion polls showing that most Serbs favour EU accession because of employment and travel opportunities it will provide (Ramet 2010: 37, BCSP 2017: 33) with a half of them reporting they would feel indifferent if one day the bloc went out of existence (BCSP 2017: 34). Moreover, the European idea and support for EU integration are less perceptible in Serbia than elsewhere in the Balkan region (e.g. Subotić 2011: 322) and, as was shown above, they are coupled with widespread anti-EU sentiments. As Subotić (ibid: 326) puts it, "Europe came to be constructed in Serbia as an other, not quite a foe (that would be the United States and NATO), but never a friend (that would be Russia)." A number of factors have kept Serbian conservatism and nationalism afloat, partially even strengthening it and making it, according to Dulić (2011: 36), "a far greater threat for Serbia than for other European countries." Some of them-such as "the low standard of living of the majority of the population; low educational level and modest social mobility; great disparities in the level of development of different parts of the country" (ibid: 31)-are objective and seem identical to those in most European countries. However, specifically in the post-Milošević Serbia, a favourable ground for conservatism also appears to be the result of particular actors' activities. The first of them is Serbia's political elite which chiefly includes the country's old nomenklatura who has successfully made use of freedom of speech and democratic procedures to stay at power (ibid: 27, 33). Subotić (2011: 320, 326) argues that it is largely their responsibility that, whilst publicly promoting EU integration agenda, they tend to prioritise short-term over long-term interests, inflaming nationalism and conspirational thinking and trying to capitalise on "the confusion and conflation that existed in Serbia about what, exactly, Europeanization entails" in place of "delinking requirements of Europeanization from more contested national myths" (for numerous examples of these, see Velojić 2017). Second, the mainstream Serbian media-both state-owned and private-are also notorious for simply following and exploiting the popular mindset with little care about social implications this may generate. As Dulić (2011: 33) puts it, "[t]he media, state-run, and independent institutions have done little to inform and enlighten the Serbian populace, and are quite reluctant to revisit the past. The mainstream nationalistic-conservative "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 113 ideological matrix remains in almost all the media." To cite but one example, the majority of the Serbian media are sympathetic to Putin's position on the Ukrainian crisis, inflaming the already widespread nationalistic attitudes (that is, the idea of "Great Serbia" connoting that all Serbs should live in one country) of a large part of Serbs who perceive contemporary Ukraine as similar to Croatia in the 1990s and therefore, regarded the 2014 Ukrainian Euromaidan with suspicion (Varga 2016: 181-187). Third, however paradoxical it may sound, human rights NGOs also conduced to Serbia's failure to successfully "come to terms" with its past. According to Obradović-Wochnik (2013: 225), they proved to be too inflexible, ruling out all the views that contradict their own ones, which has resulted in the exception of ordinary people from the public debate on recent Serbian history. Moreover, Ostojić (2013: 243) notes that NGOs strongly demanded that the state assume responsibility for war crimes, in particular, for the Srebrenica genocide. This encountered opposition even from reformists, for assuming that sort of responsibility would have been catastrophic for Serbia's worldwide legitimacy and obliged the country to pay significant compensations to Bosnia. Fourth, the West has its share of accountability for reinforcing Serbian nationalism by being insensitive to Belgrade's requests to protect Kosovar Serbs. In March 2004, for instance, Serbs presumed the West would take strong measures in response to the ongoing outbreak of hostility against Kosovar Serbs-yet, instead, Western politicians replied by increasingly agreeing to concede to Kosovo's independence demands (Simić 2008: 6). 4.3. Affection toward Russia and Serbia-West Conflicts Serbia's "othering" of the West, coupled to the country's simultaneous attachment to Russia, becomes especially activated when it comes to concrete issues on which Belgrade finds itself in conflict with the West. Among them, three particularly stand out, namely the ICTY, Kosovo and NATO. First of all, reluctant to effectively distance itself with Milošević, the present Serbian elite seems to have inherited his stance on the ICTY, regularly labelling the court as illegitimate and criticising verdicts it issues against those associated with Milošević (Stahl 2013: 457-458). Notably, this stance "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 114 was perceptible already at the very outset of the first democratic government in 2000 (Schimmelfennig et. al. 2006: 80) and is widely shared by society. Polls tend to show that a large portion of Serbs keep considering Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić (both charged with war crimes by the ICTY) as national heroes (Ramet 2010: 31-32, Ristić 2012) and widely deny the actuality of the Srebrenica genocide, simultaneously showing little interest/knowledge in ICTY's activities (Obradović-Wochnik 2013: 210-211). Russia, in its turn, actively kindles Serbia's rejection of the ICTY by positing the court should be dissolved due to its alleged anti-Serb partiality. This happened, for instance, when the ICTY in November 2012 ruled to exonerate two Croatian generals previously charged with war crimes (Nelayeva & Semenov 2015: 51). The second identity-based and "emotionally fraught" (Wohlfeld 2015: 2) issue which heightens Russia's attractiveness in the eyes of Serbia is Kosovo, whose loss, in Dulić's words (2011: 34, see also Subotić 2011: 325), "represents a damaging blow to Serbia, given its place in collective memory and national consciousness."56 In this vein, Serbian history textbooks for schoolchildren continuously present Kosovo as a historically Serbian territory, talking about its "liberation" as a result of a Serbian military operation (Ramet 2010: 24). In the first years following the declaration of Kosovo's independence in February 2008, Serbia was taking a harsh stance on the issue, referring it to the ICJ and widely using diplomatic means to prevent Kosovo's recognition by new states and its entry into international organisations. At that period, the pledge "to be committed to the preservation of Kosovo and Metohija within the Republic of Serbia" was added to the Serbian government's official oath (cited in Ramet 2010: 25) and Serbian officials-both of the reformist and conservative camps-were elsewhere arguing that giving up Kosovo for an EU membership would be unacceptable (Subotić 2011: 325, Helsinki Bulletin 2013: 4), a position still prevailing in Serbia's public opinion (IRI 2015: 15, 56 In fairness, Serbia is hardly the sole country showing such conduct: Spain, for instance, also displays resolute reluctance to allow Catalonia to hold an independence referendum. However, while in the Spanish official/public discourse this issue is mostly regarded as economic, in Serbia, the Kosovo problem has a clear identity-oriented connotation. As Subotić (2011: 326) puts it, "Serbia's emotional hold on Kosovo cannot be explained in rationalist terms, as the territory does not provide any material benefit to Serbia it is extremely resource poor, is inhabited by a 90% Albanian population that has grown increasingly hostile to the Serbian state, and has always been a drain on already limited Serbian resources. Something else, not material interests, are at work here." "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 115 BCSP 2017: 30). In mid-2010, however, Belgrade softened its stance, agreeing to embark on the normalisation of its relations with Pristina under Brussels' patronage, the move researchers widely interpret in terms of Serbia's desire to enter the EU (e.g. Economides and Ker-Lindsay 2015). In 2013 and 2015, the two countries concluded a number of agreements mostly regulating the position of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo and certain issues regarding Kosovo as an international actor (e.g. Belgrade agreed on Kosovo's having an international dialing code). As Serbia's EU membership negotiations continue and the country's accession to the bloc seems increasingly more tangible, the country's leaders apply a progressively softer rhetoric toward Kosovo, especially when talking outside Serbia: to illustrate, in one recent interview to a Swiss magazine, Vučić expressed his desire "to start a new path," "to openly and fairly discuss the solution of the Kosovo conflict," at the same time regrettably noting that "the Serbs are not yet ready for that" (B92 2017e). Yet, the sincerity of this rhetoric is debatable, given that Serbia still tends to employ harsh measures concerning whatever goes beyond the minimal EU requirements. In 2015, for example, Belgrade launched a worldwide lobbying campaign to oppose Kosovo's entry into UNESCO, which finished successfully for Serbs (Lobanov and Zvezdanović Lobanova 2016: 135). More recently, in January 2017, a Serbian train painted in the colours of the Serbian flag and having the "Kosovo is Serbia" slogan was prohibited from crossing Kosovo's border, which provoked a determined reaction from Nikolić who announced his readiness to use, upon necessity, the Serbian army to protect Kosovar Serbs (BBC News 2017). In 2008, Moscow supported Belgrade's resolute stance against the Kosovo independence, following which Serbia made several moves in Russia's favour, such as establishing a visa-free regime for Russian citizens (Moscow replied symmetrically some days later), expressing its "understanding" for the Russian 2008 initiative to conclude a new treaty on European security and voting at the UN General Assembly against the resolution that recognised the right of expellees to come back to Abkhazia. At that period, one author noted on this point: "Vladimir Putin has reason to thank the Western powers: They have allowed him to succeed where Stalin failed, namely in securing Russian political and economic influence in "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 116 Belgrade" (Reljić 2008: 2). Thus far, Serbian leaders have elsewhere named the Kosovo issue as one of the main questions determining the Belgrade-Moscow friendship, thanking Russia for supporting Serbian territorial integrity (e.g. Hellsinki Bulletin 2013: 4, Rudić 2017). However, the rational benefit Belgrade gains from the strategic collaboration with Moscow appears questionable-with this questionableness not being limited to the intuitive notion that this collaboration is at variance with Serbia's EU integration path. More significantly, the Kremlin's support on Kosovo seems to be generally apathetic and mainly limited to criticism of Western policies instead of the elaboration of its own initiatives, an approach to which Lobanov and Zvezdanović Lobanova (2016: 134, my translation) refer as "the position of an outside observer." In view of this, Moscow chiefly takes measures that require no or little active efforts and expenses-for example, vetoing resolutions favouring Kosovo in the UNSC-and have no critical influence on the issue's settlement. By withdrawing its troops from Bosnia and Kosovo in 2003, Russia deliberately abstained from being seriously involved in the peaceful settlement any longer, making its further support of Bosnian and Kosovar Serbs principally verbal. Furthermore, Moscow itself seems to treat its position on Kosovo far less affectively than how it is interpreted inside Serbia: in this respect, Petrović (2010a: 28-29) notes that Russia's official framing on Kosovo in mid-2000s accentuated the defence of the principle of territorial integrity and sovereignty,57 while inside Serbia it used to be mostly perceived and expounded as the defence of Serbia. In a similar vein, Simić (2008: 7) points to the fact that throughout the 2000s, Russia possessed its self-interest in supporting Serbia's territorial integrity, given the presence of separatism inside Russia (in Chechnya), the overall background of the progressively increasing Russia-West confrontation as well as the Kremlin's desire to demonstrate that its policies and interests in the Balkans were no longer as weak as in the 1990s. Moreover, the wide recognition of Kosovo's independence by Western states allowed 57 To illustrate, on 3 June 2007, Putin stated: "We advocate dialogue and the implementation of international law, which implies respect for the territorial integrity of states. If we decide to give preference to the principle of ethnic self-determination over territorial integrity, that should be done everywhere in the world, particularly in Southern Ossetia, in Abkhazia and Transdnistria" (quoted in Simić 2008: 7). "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 117 Russia to deem the principle of territorial integrity as relative, getting a free hand in the post-Soviet space: in February 2008, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced a change in Russia's position on Abkhazia and South Ossetia in light of Kosovo's declaration of independence (Vedomosti 2008) and on 11 March 2014, the Ministry recognised Crimea's succession from Ukraine, directly citing Kosovo as a precedent proving its legitimacy (MFA of Russia 2014). All in all, Moscow seems to conceive of the Kosovo issue more from the perspective of the Russia-West confrontation than in terms of its bilateral relations with Belgrade. In this vein, the Kremlin somewhat opposes the EU-led Serbia-Kosovo normalisation process, sometimes resorting to overt criticism of Belgrade's "softness." For instance, commenting on his country's stance on Serbian territorial integrity, Russia's former ambassador in Belgrade Aleksandr Konuzin said (B92 2012b): We [Russians] cannot be more Serb than Serbs. For that reason, when under outside pressure-which, by the way, has not relented to this day-Belgrade changed its previous position completely and asked us to support its new stance, there was nothing left for us to do but to satisfy that plea. Although, for us, from this point in time, I can tell you, that was completely unexpected. Russia-Serbia's sole strategic partner-was faced with a fait accompli! That was not in line with relations of a strategic partnership that we strove to build. The third such issue is NATO, the alliance which Serbians perceive as an adversary, being the region's only nation that does not want to join it. According to recent polls, only 17% (13%, according to another survey) of Serbians favour accession to NATO, while 71% (53%) oppose it (Altagić 2015: 116). By contrast, in 2016, 47.3% of Montenegrins (Government of Montenegro 2016) and 73% of Macedonians (IRI 2016) wanted their countries to enter the alliance. Serbians' rejection of NATO is usually attributed to the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, despite that throughout that campaign, the alliance kept underlining that its target was the Milošević regime and not Serbian people (Stahl 2013: 460). Moreover, researchers argue that the Serbian political elite mostly shares the negative perception toward the alliance and, similarly to the public, treats it as an identity issue (e.g. Subotić 2011, Stahl 2013). The same seems to hold for Serbian intellectuals: even liberal scholar Vojin Dimitrijević calls the bombings "unreasonable," for they exacerbated the already widespread anti-Western sentiments in Serbia (2009: 44). "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 118 Serbs' unacceptance of NATO has been inextricably parallel to their emotional attachment to Russia, which manifested itself most demonstratively in April 1999, when the country's Parliament voted to one-sidedly accede to the Union of Russia and Belarus. Nowadays, Serbia and Russia are the mere Eastern European states where the majority of citizens regard NATO as a threat (B92 2017a). Serbian officials tend to assure their Russian counterparts that Serbia has no intention to enter NATO, a move which would transgress Russia's "red line" (Torralba 2014: 6). Few joint Russia-Serbia events do without highlighting their contemporaneous opposition to the alliance: to illustrate, during his visit to Belgrade in 2014, the then speaker of the Russian Parliament Sergey Naryshkin visited the monument of those killed by the 1999 NATO bombings, vigorously stressing in his speech that the "NATO aggression angered Russian society" (ibid: 3). On this point, however, two concerns may be raised. First, while the Russian government and society indeed in the 1990s treated Yugoslavia more empathetically than Western powers, Russia still was generally adhering to the West's line, supporting ICTY formation in 1993 and not vetoing economic sanctions in the UNSC in 1992-1994 and 1998. During the 1999 NATO campaign, Russia's support of Yugoslavia appears to have been, in the words of Nelayeva and Semenov (2015: 48, my translation), "of rather symbolic importance." Indeed, not only had Moscow failed to prevent the bombings, but also it teamed up with the West to compel Milošević to surrender: the plan jointly elaborated by Russian PM Viktor Chernomyrdin and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari served as the basis for UNSC Resolution 1244 sanctioning the deployment of international military forces in Kosovo. Second, it remains debatable whether rejecting NATO is to Serbia's best rational interest, given that, as Petrović (2010b) fairly notes, Serbia shares common objective security threats with its neighbouring states, all of which have joined or want to join the alliance. Furthermore, for Serbia, NATO's significance is also linked to the fact that the alliance's Kosovo Force is accountable for protecting Serbs in Kosovo, an idea that Serbian officials overtly express, emphasising the magnitude of not reducing the forces' size. (Torralba 2014: 6). Moreover, the parallel increase in Belgrade's cooperation with the CSTO, a military alliance comprising a number of "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 119 post-Soviet states, involves the country into the security issues of the region Serbia has little, if anything, to do with. Additionally, especially in the noughties, Serbia's emotional unacceptance of NATO tended to somewhat exceed that of Russia: according to Gligorijević (2010), fearing to raise Moscow's concern, Belgrade was reluctant to cooperate with NATO, showing "ideological misperceptions," "emotional judgements" and "irrational thinking" (ibid: 95), whereas Russia itself at that period was enjoying a formal strategic partnership with the alliance, pragmatically collaborating with it. This, however, seems to have changed in the current decade: while Russia-NATO cooperation has come to naught in light of the Ukrainian crisis, Serbia has intensified its collaboration with the alliance, having conducted in the 21 century in total 197 events of NATO and 370 operations jointly with NATO in contrast to solely 36 military events with Russia (Movchan 2017: 5-6). This appears to further widen the gap between emotionality and rationality in Serbia's approach to the alliance. 4.4. Trauma and Victimisation Serbs' disinclination toward the West and their parallel affection to Russia appear to be partially consequential of the trauma the nation experienced back during the five-century-long Ottoman control of the Balkans. At that period, the feeling of isolation along with the need to preserve their national identity induced Serbs to adhere closer to their families, prioritising collectivist values over individualist ones (Ristić 2007: 191-192) and, consequently, traditionalism over liberalism, for the former is more effective for preserving the unity of a group, be it a family or a nation (Bianchini 2011: 99-100). Dulić argues that this type of collectivism, deeply rooted in the Serbian mentality, favours affective and impedes critical thinking, vastly resembling what Edward Said named "Orientalist attitude" consisting in "the self-containing, self-reinforcing character of a closed system, in which objects are what they are because they are what they are, for once, for all time, for ontological reasons that no empirical material can either dislodge or alter" (quoted in Dulić 2011: 26). The trauma seems to have two major implications on the contemporary Serbian identity, both of which are conducive to its revulsion at the West and "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 120 attraction to Russia. First, in the absence of a Serbian state under the Turkish rule, the primary bulwark of the national identity was the Orthodox church, which shaped a sense of organic unity, or "symphony," between the Serbian state, church and people (Ristić 2007: 191-192). The "symphony" is mirrored in the contemporary political process: as Đorđević (2009: 268; see also Bianchini 2011: 94) puts it, "the state is more interested in clericalization than the Church itself", arguing that regarding the Kosovo issue, "these interests are intertwined, and not at all easy to establish when the state determines the SOC [Serbian Orthodox Church]'s position on Kosovo, and when the opposite happens: the Church determines and dictates state politics at such important historical moments" (for details, see section 4.7). Second, the occupation period cultivated the nowadays widespread sensation of Serbs as victims of international injustice which, following Stojanović (2011: 229), "starts from the premise that, despite its own historical righteousness, 'the people' were the historical victim of all the neighbors, and even some more distant peoples." Dulić (2011: 26) argues that the victimisation "has informed Serbian nationalism, which is strongly characterized by the theme of conspiracy against Serbs." In the 1990s, the deep sense of victimisation among Serbs contributed well to the success of Milošević's traditionalist rhetoric and the popular support of his involvement in the Bosnian war. Perhaps ironically, at that period, this sense gained further strength as a consequence of a decade-long international isolation and economic sanctions, when the country was being treated, in Bianchini's words (2011: 78), as "the 'pariah' of the 'European family'": the West's coercive measures backfired, raising Milošević's domestic popularity. Simultaneously, the isolation produced a sense of claustrophobia among those who disagreed with Milošević: as Bianchini (ibid: 83) puts it, "[a]lthough mostly underestimated by the transatlantic societies, these components of the Serbian society have been notable in number and consistency (while politically divided) throughout the 1990s: however, since the isolation concerned Serbia as a whole, they did not understand why they had to suffer from a punishment connected to a policy they never supported." As a result, Serbs came out of the 1990s with mixed feelings, conceiving of EU membership "as the only available way out from a distressed sense of enclosure", simultaneously "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 121 possessing "a high degree of self-reliance" (ibid). The fact that nowadays most Serbs tend to deny the Srebrenica massacre and have difficulty in naming at least one Serbian army's crime in the Bosnian war, while being capable of easily recalling several crimes others perpetrated against Serbs at that period (Ramet 2010: 35), perfectly illustrates the extent to which victimisation is rooted in the Serbian society. Another apt illustration of this phenomenon is the dominant public attitude toward EU integration, according to which, as Stahl (2013: 463) puts it, "Serbia deserves EU membership per se and the EU is conspiratorially hindering Serbia's overdue accession." 4.5. Relations with Russia and Accession to the EU Serbia is a unique EU candidate whose official ideology, while setting EU membership as the country's strategic goal, postulates that its foreign policy rests on four pillars, namely the EU, the US, Russia and China (Żornaczuk 2015: 1). This doctrine reflects a general perception among the Serbian political elite that Russia, like the EU, is the country's strategic partner, a close collaboration with which should be kept even where/when it runs counter to Serbia's primary strategic goal. In recent years, this has manifested itself along a number of lines. First, Belgrade has been steadily increasing its collaboration with Moscow on petroleum and gas, while the EU, conversely, has been seeking to minimise its energy dependence on Russia. In 2008-2011, the Serbian government sold 56,15% of its shares of NIS, the country's national oil and gas company that possesses two oil refineries, to the Russian state-owned enterprise Gazprom Neft. At the same period, Belgrade also agreed to take part and invest in the South Stream, a project of a gas pipeline from Russia to the EU. Second, since the very outset of the Russo-Ukrainian crisis, Serbia has been determined not to join EU sanctions on Russia, despite Brussels' continuous requests to express solidarity and bring the country's foreign policy in balance with that of the bloc. Yet, the most of the region's other EU candidates joined the sanctions: notably, even Montenegro did so, in a risky move for a country for which Russia at that time was the main source of FDI, accounting for about 30% of them (Central Bank of Montenegro 2015: 108). Importantly, identity-based motives seem "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 122 to have determined a substantial part of Belgrade's decision, which is evidenced by its official justifications given by Serbian officials. Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić, for instance, noted that "Serbia will not join any sanctions on Russia, as that state is not just our friend and economic and political partner but a state that never imposed sanctions on Serbia" (Ristić 2014) and, in like manner, Nikolić said that "Serbia will not endanger its morality by any hostility towards Russia" (Borger 2014). 58 Remarkably, Belgrade not only fails to show solidarity with Brussels, but also appears to be willing to capitalise on the bloc's confrontation with Russia, although this seems to be reputationally detrimental to Serbia's EU aspirations. After in August 2014, Putin introduced a food export embargo against the countries that had imposed economic sanctions on Russia, Vučić assured EU officials that Serbia would not use the embargo in order to boost re-export, going as far as warning Serbian farmers they could "end up in prison" for such actions (Euractiv 2014). Nevertheless, as early as in March 2015, the Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor) suspected that Serbia was re-exporting Polish apples to Russia. In the following year, Serbia became the largest supplier of apples to Russia, selling 185 times (!) as many apples as on an average year for 10 years before 2014 (Buravich 2017). Third, alongside with its rapprochement with NATO, Serbia cooperates with Russia in the military sphere. In 2013, Moscow and Belgrade signed bilateral agreements on military cooperation and strategic partnership and since then, Serbia has held the status of Permanent Observer in the CSTO. In November 2014, during the peak of the Ukrainian conflict, the two countries organised a joint military exercise for the first time in eight years and have held such exercises regularly ever since. Remarkably, the exercises tend to be met with discontent from Serbia's neighbours: in August 2016, for example, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović overtly expressed her concern over the upcoming "Slavic Brotherhood" exercise that was about to be conducted in Serbia a month later (B92 58 This compares with Macedonia, the other EU candidate which rejected to join the sanctions as well, yet, citing the grounds unrelated to its relations with Russia. Skopje's reasoning was that penalising Russia for a violation of the international law would be unfair, since Greece, an EU member state, also breaks international norms by blocking Macedonia's accession to NATO and the EU, facing, however, no punishment from the bloc for that (Pajaziti 2014). "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 123 2016).59 The special relations Belgrade enjoys with Moscow impede Serbia's EU integration success. At the most basic level, it concerns the highly pro-Russian rhetoric of the Serbian political elite: in this respect, one EU member state's diplomat recently said about two Serbian ministers that they "often go a little farther in their declarations of love to Russia, which worries officials in Brussels" (B92 2017f). Also, because Serbia systematically refuses to support EU official decisions regarding Russia, the country demonstrates the smallest rate of alignment with the bloc among its candidate countries: according to the recent progress reports, in 2016, Montenegro and Albania aligned with 100% of relevant EU declarations and Council decisions, Macedonia with 73%, while Serbia with only 59% (European Commission 2016a: 84, b: 80, c: 80, d: 78).60 In response, the EU tends to slow down Serbia's integration pace due to its concern that Moscow may use Belgrade as its "Trojan horse" in the bloc (Lobanov & Zvezdanović Lobanova 2016: 138). 61 This notwithstanding, the EU has yet to punish Serbia, which some scholars attribute to Brussels' apprehension that excessive pressure might further strengthen the Russia-Serbia friendship (ibid). On this point, it is notable that expressing solidarity with the EU's foreign policy is not formally obligatory for its candidate states; however, EU relations with Russia, especially concerning the Ukrainian crisis, is what the bloc considers to be a crucial dimension of its foreign affairs, solidarity on which is strongly desirable. In the words of Michael Roth, German Minister of state 59 Interestingly, that exercise was taking place simultaneously with NATO's exercise in neighbourly Montenegro, in which Serbia itself and all its neighbours were taking part (Batchelor 2016). 60 Noteworthy is that when relations with Russia or the three above-mentioned identity-sensitive issues are not involved, Serbia generally complies with EU demands even when it comes to problems of high salience: as the country's foreign Minister Ivica Dačić said in May 2015, "[w]e [Serbs] back all EU decisions except sanctions on Russia" (quoted in Wohlfeld 2015: 2). For instance, Serbia's handling of the refugee crisis has been very positively appreciated by EU officials (Lilyanova 2016; Bjelotomić 2017), while even inside the bloc, the crisis has provoked considerable controversies between and resistance of some of its member states. 61 It seems, however, debatable how legitimate this concern is. Just prior to being elected as President, Nikolić spoke in favour of Serbia being the "backbone of Russia in Europe" (SNS 2012), however, in a more recent period, Serbian officials have tried to somewhat dissociate themselves from Russia. To exemplify, in July 2017, the country's minister of European integration Jadranka Joksimović said: "We are Serbs, we are not 'little Russians,' nor are we a 'Trojan horse' for Russian interests in the EU" (MEI of Serbia 2017). Also, some authors doubt whether Serbia will be capable of furthering Russian interests once it enters the bloc, given that small states' weight in EU decision-making process is limited. Đukić (2015: 32), for instance, reminds that Bulgaria also used to promise to be Russia's voice in the EU, but this hardly seems to have happened. "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 124 for Europe, "[i]n such matters there can be no 'neutral position' for a state that wants to be part of Europe" (cited in Wohlfeld 2015: 6). The bloc's critical standpoint on Serbia's support of Russian foreign policy has systematically manifested itself in multiple official documents adopted since 2014: to illustrate, the EU Parliament's recent resolution summoned Serbia, in line with the requirements of its candidate status, to progressively align its foreign and security policy with that of the EU, including its policy on Russia; considers the conduct of joint Serbia-Russia military exercises regrettable; is concerned about the presence of Russian air facilities in Nis; regrets that in December 2016 Serbia was one of 26 countries that did not support the resolution on Crimea at the United Nations calling for an international observation mission on the human rights situation in the peninsula (European Parliament 2017). 4.6. Russia's Attractiveness-and Russia's Serbia Policies: History and Contemporaneity Serbian domestic discourse commonly justifies (and perhaps reinforces) Serbs' positive attitude to Russia and Russians by reference to historical arguments: as explained by Altagić (2015: 115, my translation), [t]his conception has been dominant for the last 300 years of the long and complex political cooperation of Russians and Serbs62 . . . Russian military, political, financial and educational support of orthodox Serbs in their fight for the liberation from the yoke of the Ottoman empire in 18 and 19 centuries as well as the cultural and spiritual closeness of the two nations nowadays remains the foundation for Serbs' empathy toward Russians and the basis of Russia's image as a "defender," "elder sister," "saviour of Serbia, Serbs and the orthodox spirit" etc. Notably, a narrative grounded on this conception is widespread among the national political elite and tends to be utilised as a rationale for Serbia's foreign policy orientation even by those politicians that have the reputation of being pro-Western (e.g. Konitzer 2011, Subotić 2011, Đukić 2015). This narrative is also widely exploited by Russian officials both on formal and informal occasions: to give a telling example, in his last interview as an ambassador, Konuzin said (B92 2012b): It seems to me that during the years that I spent in your country, I 62 Noteworthy is that in different historical periods in 15-19 centuries, Serbs' dominant perception of Russia rested on diverse ideas-of Moscow as "the Third Rome", of the Russian tsar as "the great Orthodox emperor" and of Russia as the leading force of aroused Slavism-all of which stem from their national identity (Jovanović 2010: 17). "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 125 learned about the character and mentality of its people fairly well-they are bright representatives of the Slavic tribes. I would like to wish to Serbs that they recapture the faith in their own strength, that they find inspiration in the examples set by their heroes and their history, that they strengthen their national unity around the idea of building a new Serbia-that they guard every inch of their Serb land, which was safeguarded and left as a legacy by their ancestors. Russia will always be your closest friend. The rationality of this discourse and its usage, however, can be put into question from two perspectives. Firstly, and most intuitively, historical references, even if well-justified, may successfully lay the foundation for amicable ties between ordinary people, however, they tend to fail to account for contemporary (geo-)economic and (geo-)political realities and thus, can hardly serve as a reasonable base for a state's foreign policy. One can agree with Đukić (2015: 33) that the rationality of "bask[ing] in the old glory of Serbian-Russian relations" at present is impugnable, even if Russia's "great historical role in the Balkans" (ibid: 32) and its particular importance for Serbia in the past are admitted. Secondly, studies show that the history of Russo-Serbian relations has been far more complicated than what the above-mentioned narrative is able to comprise: as Konitzer (2011: 104) puts it, "Russia's and Serbia's shared diplomatic history provides a more heterogeneous set of legacies than suggested by the underlying assumption of an unalloyed 'historical friendship.'" Decades/centuries ago, the Russian Empire indeed managed to successfully create the reputation of the patron of Slavic orthodox Balkan nations, making its mark on the majority of their fateful events. Yet, scholars note that Russia mostly assisted them when it was beneficial for Russia itself: for instance, both when declaring war on the Ottoman Empire in 1877 and starting mobilisation against Austria-Hungary in 1914, Russia had territorial pretensions to those states, while officially using the pretext of defending Balkan Slavs (Bulgarians in 1877, Serbs in 1914) against aggression (for details, see Jovanović 2010, Timofeyev 2010, Konitzer 2011). Furthermore, Russo-Serbian relations have experienced several periods of cooling. In 1878-1903, Russia deliberately focused its attention to Bulgaria, leaving Serbia under Austria-Hungary's influence (Jovanović 2010: 16). Likewise, in the interwar period, when the two states enjoyed very limited relations due to their ideological polarity, the Soviet "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 126 Russia/Union had no intention to "patronise" Yugoslavia: on this point, Timofeyev (2010: 22) tellingly notes that "the USSR's neutrality was not interrupted even after the lightening destruction of Yugoslavia by the Wehrmacht in 1941." During the Cold War, the two states mostly had partnership relations63-as Wohlfeld (2015: 2) notes, "Serbia's collective memory of this period is free of negative experiences"-yet, researchers primarily view their cooperation at that period as pragmatic rather than identity-laden. For instance, as Reljić (2008: 2) puts it, [t]he Soviet Union was the Eastern hegemon, while Yugoslavia was one of the pioneers of the Non-Aligned Movement. There was no mention of fostering "spiritual links" or other special sentiments; on the contrary, the Yugoslav People's Army, which long remained the fourth-largest military force in Europe, trained hard in the defense of both its western and its eastern borders. Yet, even if faulty, historical analogies appear to be a more powerful rationale Belgrade might use to justify its balancing between Brussels and Moscow than, for instance, material motives. Serbia does not seem to benefit much from its free trade area with Russia, established in 2000. Indeed, Russia's impact in Serbian trade is comparatively insignificant and is declining even further: from 2013 to 2016, Russia's share in Serbia's exports fell from 7.3% to 5.3%, in imports from 9.2% to 7.9%, while the EU's respective shares rose from 62.8% to 66.1% and from 61.8% to 63.1% (EU Delegation to Serbia 2017c, 2017d). On top of that, the EU is Serbia's by far largest donor: in 2000-2015, the bloc allocated €3 billion to the country, which 4.5 times exceeds €679 million, the contribution which the US, Serbia's second largest donor, made over the same period (EU Delegation to Serbia 2017a). Moreover, the EU is also Serbia's largest source of FDI: the bloc's annual FDI to Serbia in 2005-2015 exceeded those coming from the rest of the world more than two times (EU Delegation to Serbia 2017b). The sole significant benefits Serbia has managed to gain are thanks to the re-export of agricultural products from the EU to Russia, however, its effect is temporary and potentially hurtful to the country's reputation in the EU. Furthermore, as Russian economist Andrei Movchan (2017: 5) notes, Moscow cooperates with Belgrade primarily where it pursues its own self-interest (be it the construction of a Russian humanitarian base or the 63 Except for the 1948 Tito-Stalin conflict which, however, was a personal dispute between the two leaders and cleared up after the latter's death. "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 127 restoration of a Serbian railway, linked to a bilateral agreement on gas pipelines), simultaneously showing little interest in supporting Serbian export to Russia. Lastly, Russia does not reward Serbia's loyalty in the same way as how it does with its other friends: on this point, it is notable that Serbia pays more for Russian gas than even some EU members that have no special relations with Russia (e.g. Austria, Italy), not to mention Russia's traditional allies in the post-Soviet space (Kates & Luo 2014). Additionally, in Serbia, Russia seems to play its own game, pursuing its own interests which stem from its present geopolitical confrontation with the EU. In this vein, Moscow tries to exploit and inflame Bosnian Serbs' nationalism and disappointment in official Belgrade. To exemplify, in July 2015, Russia supported the call for a referendum on whether Bosnia's national court has authority over the autonomous Serb region of Republika Srpska, launched by the region's President Milorad Dodik. That move was in discordance with the Serbian government's official position which disfavoured the call (Bechev 2015: 3). Occasionally, in its policies toward Belgrade, Moscow resorts to strong/unfriendly measures which, however, appear less coercive than its policies in the post-Soviet space, Russia's "special zone of interest." Among the recent instances of these measures are the above-mentioned discontinuation of the South Stream, the 2015 warning to ban the import of Serbian fruit on the (perhaps, well-grounded) suspicion that they were from the EU and the diminution of gas supply to Serbia by 30% a few days after Putin visited Belgrade in 2014. Officially, the last was done due to Serbia's unpaid $200 million debt, yet, unofficially, it was largely interpreted as Moscow's desire to penalise Belgrade for the then ongoing investigation aimed to assess the lawfulness of the purchase of NIS by Gazprom Neft in 2008 (Torralba 2014: 11). Also, not officially opposing Serbia's EU path (as Russian officials directly state elsewhere, see Reljić 2008: 4, B92 2012b, B92 2014a), the Kremlin still supports Serbia's alternative media which promote anti-NATO and Eurosceptic sentiments (Atlagić 2015: 117),64 let alone the fact that Russian officials tend to describe the West's treatment of Serbia as unfair and biased and, while expressing Serbia's EU 64 Commentators note Russia's growing media presence in Serbia, which seems identical to everywhere, nonetheless, in Serbia, the Kremlin-financed Sputnik news agency arguably enjoys a particularly high popularity both due to the already auspicious public opinion as well as the fact that it is better financed and hence, has wider opportunities than most local media. (Sajkas 2016). "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 128 integration aspirations "with understanding," they present them as something Serbia does somehow involuntarily, proceeding from situational material needs (e.g. B92 2012b, B92 2014a). In a recent interview, Rogozin accused Americans of "sowing the seeds of hostility" in the Balkans, arguing that Montenegro's NATO membership is against Serbia and describing the West's alleged dislike for Serbia as chronic and stemming from the fact that Serbs are perceived as "the Balkan Russians" (B92 2017b). On this point, he added, there's no way you [Serbs] can change that. No matter how much you try to get them to like you, they will never like you. One needs to be who one is, respect one's ancestors, one's Orthodox faith, hold one's own truth. The world only respects people like that, trust me-as Serbs and as Russians (ibid). Serbians generally seem to reason about politics emotively, expressing somewhat indifference about ongoing foreign affairs. In 2016, for instance, half of respondents could not name a single EU integration-related event that happened in 2015, only 9% recalled the conclusion of a new agreement with Kosovo and 19% the opening of the first chapters at the EU membership talks (Lobanov & Zvezdanović Lobanova 2016: 132). This mindset seems to favour Russia, giving that country a considerable-and sometimes seemingly exhaustless-preference over the EU. In Serbia, Russia tends to be loved by default, independent from and irrespective of what it does: perhaps the most telling evidence of this point is that in 2014, 47% of Serbians were naming Russia the greatest provider of development aid to Serbia, while in reality, 89.49% of the contributions was coming from the EU and the US, whereas Russia's aid was not even mentioned in statistical statements (Szpala 2014: 3). Remarkably, this perception of Russia truly seems to spring from Serbs themselves: while noting a gradual growth of Russia's presence in Serbia through government-financed NGOs, foundations and mass media (Varga 2016: 186-187), researchers argue that it would be wrong to completely impute Russia's positive image to its intentional activities, pointing to the fact that the analogous presence of the West in Serbia far exceeds that of Russia (e.g. Atlagić 2015: 116-117). Remarkably, in Serbian domestic discourse, Russia enjoys a position of the country, has a special status: in this respect, Jovanović (2010: 13) argues that "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 129 narratives about Russia are present "at the level of dominant social stereotypes/myths, which have been present in the Serbian culture for two centuries now and which have become part of collective mentality." According to him, Russia is treated as "a symbol with a functional value exclusively in the Serbian political speech and ideological battles" with even those disliking Russia and/or having little knowledge about Russia using that country as a point of reference in their reasoning (ibid: 14). On this point, he notes that "[m]ost authors, when writing about Russia, experience it as equal to themselves, i.e., Serbia, and at that level, from both sides, they even keep instructing Russia (e.g. what kind of a more "proper" policy it should apply to protect Serbia" (ibid: 15). In their turn, Russians apparently attribute smaller importance to Serbia, the evidence of which can be found both at the governmental and social levels. Today's Russian Foreign Policy Concept makes no mention of Serbia among Russian foreign policy dimensions, while giving consideration to several states which Moscow traditionally considers as insignificant, for instance, Australia and New Zealand (MFA of Russia 2016). This seems to be an apt illustration for the argument of Nelayeva and Semenov (2015: 54, my translation) that for the Kremlin's foreign policy, Serbia is currently a "sleeping resource," a country which is "on the periphery of its interests." Furthermore, in 2004, merely 18% of Russians had special empathy to Serbs, while 69% considered them as just a European nation (Antonenko 2007: 12). Analogously, in a poll annually conducted since 2006, where Russian citizens are asked to name five countries they regard as their country's closest friends, Serbia's result has never exceeded 8% (Levada Center 2017). Hence, one can agree with Konuzin that historically, "according to the opinion of many Serbs, Russia was a Serbian strategic partner, although the significance of Russia as a strategic partner was not the same for all of them" (quoted in Petrović 2010a: 39). Another notable point is that strong emotional bonds ensure the persistence of Russia's attraction in Serbia even in the cases of negative bilateral interaction. Illustrative of this point was the very moderate reaction which Vucić showed in answer to Russia's unilateral decision to stop the South Stream project in December "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 130 2014.65 Calling it "not good news for Serbia," Serbian PM regrettably noted that "[w]e [Serbs] have been investing in South Stream for seven years and we in no way contributed to that decisions, it is obvious that we are suffering because of a clash between big [countries]" (B92 2014b). Incidentally, the majority of the main Serbian media responded similarly: they employed stricter rhetoric about Russia solely for a short period of time and soon came back to their wonted way of news coverage, directing all their criticism toward the EU (Wohlfeld 2015: 4). Noteworthy here is how different were Brussels' and Moscow's behaviours toward Belgrade: while the Russian ambassador simply suggested the Serbian government ask the European Commission for compensation (ibid: 3), the EU extended its helping hand to Serbia, offering that country an inclusion in the bloc's energy union, loans for energy projects and an assistance in constructing the Sofia-Dimitrovgrad-Nis gas interconnection (Żornaczuk 2015: 2). Perhaps realising its pre-existing advantage, Russia especially concentrates on an affective rather than a rational domain in its activities in Serbia, which manifests itself across various areas. In international fora like the UN, Russia mostly advocates those interests of Serbia which are identity-laden and which tend to be concomitant with Serbia-West contradictions (e.g. voting against the recognition of the Srebrenica genocide and Kosovo's membership in UNESCO). The same holds true for Russia's economic aid, much of which is devoted to its "spiritual" dimension: in 2012, for instance, Moscow allocated $2 million on the restoration of damaged orthodox monasteries in Kosovo (TASS 2012). The two states' leaders often participate in each other's events having great emotional connotation and, remarkably, they are frequently unique in these participations. In October 2014, for example, Putin was a guest of honour at the Belgrade Military Parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of Belgrade's liberation from Nazis, while 65 This happened because Bulgaria had suspended its activities on the pipeline due to Gazprom's failure to satisfy the terms of the EU Third Energy Package concerning separation of energy generation and supply. In response, Putin cancelled the project, blaming the European Commission for allegedly hampering the pipeline's construction. His justification, however, seems hardly convincing, given that the Kremlin had been perfectly familiar with the Third Energy Package's requirements while initiating the South Stream. Considering this, a more compelling explanation of the Kremlin's move is that suggested by Wohlfeld (2015: 3) who believes that "economic crisis in Russia meant that it was simply no longer able to afford the largely politically driven project – and that economic concerns had significantly higher priority over friendship." "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 131 Nikolić was the only EU member/candidate leader who attended the Victory Parade in Moscow on 9 May 2015. Conducive to reinforcement of emotions are the personalities the Kremlin appoints to represent Moscow in Belgrade. Konuzin, for example, was nicknamed a "Serb ambassador to Serbia," for the tone, presentation and content of his messages were especially strong in conservatism and anti-Westernism, sometimes being hardly compatible with the role of a diplomat. The Serbian Helsinki Committee (2013: 3) describes him as "a diplomat who never withheld his criticism of the government he was accredited with," who "admonished Belgrade relentlessly as if he thought the greater part of Serbia understood him better than its own government." Most memorably, at the 2011 Belgrade Security Forum, when Russia was being strongly criticised for its growing meddling in the Balkans, Konuzin stood up and asked "Are there any Serbs here?" (ibid). Incidentally, that Russia picks up events having strong affective implications and receiving substantial public attention and media coverage seems to strengthen Russia's positive image even in the cases when the country's objective contribution/role appears minor. While, as was argued above, the Russian support of Yugoslavia in 1999 hardly had any decisive impact on the NATO campaign, many remembered forever how the then Russian Premier Yevgeny Primakov U-turned his plane when he learnt that NATO's bombing had begun. Equally memorable was the unexpected occupation of the Pristina airport by Russian forces before NATO managed to deploy its troops there. Among more recent instances is the flood that occurred in Serbia in May 2014, to which Moscow reacted fast, providing humanitarian aid and sending rescue teams, the catchy image of which the Serbian media used to depict Russia-Serbia "brotherly" ties. The EU, in turn, responded by allocating €60 million directly plus raising €995 at a conference of international donors (Torralba 2014: 3), the reaction which was more considerable in scale, but less eye-catching in emotional terms. Also, in recent years, Russia has been particularly active in helping Serbia to fight forest fires, which tends to receive emotional appeals even from the liberal Serbian media: to illustrate, the Serbian independent news agency B92 recently published a news report on this topic, pathetically entitled "Any large fires in Serbia would be put out by Russians" (B92 "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 132 2017d). 4.7. The Church Factor In Serbia, the actor that appears to perhaps most actively repulse the West and favour Russia is the Serbian Orthodox Church, the influentiality of which should not be neglected both due to the above-mentioned sense of state-church "symphony" among Serbs and the fact that it is the most trusted institution in the country with the popularity rate of 74% (PASOS 2016). Moreover, most Serbians regard being Orthodox as a significant quality for a genuine citizen of Serbia (Pew Research Center 2017: 12) and consider "orthodox brotherhood" to be one of the main two reasons (along with Russia's ability to confront the West) why keeping strong ties with Russia is supposedly to Serbia's best interest (IRI 2015: 24). The Church is notorious for its hard-edged stance on Serbia-West problematic issues, in which it enjoys popularity among radical conservative groups and rarely seeks to dissociate itself from them (Đorđević 2009: 279). The most exemplary of these issues is Kosovo, the Church's position on which some scholars describe as "blindness to the real state of affairs" (ibid). The Church actively uses the Kosovo question to ignite radicalism, emotionally portraying Kosovo as "the holy Serbian land," "Serbian Jerusalem," "the holy land we [Serbs] will never renounce" and "the cradle" of Serbia (Đorđević 2009: 270, Bianchini 2011: 94), spurning the Serbian government's talks with the Kosovar authorities as a national betrayal (Đorđević 2009: 279). Importantly, the Church also describes Kosovo as "the canonical territory of the Serbian Orthodox Church" which may have a strong affective effect on religious believers and is generally an accurate depiction, yet, in reality, as Đorđević fairly notes, "the state borders and the borders of the SOC's canonical territory are not the same, and they have never been the same" (ibid). To justify its viewpoint, the Church primarily resorts to historical facts which scholars describe as correct, but one-sided, focusing only on the importance of Kosovo for Serbs and disregarding that for other nations (ibid: 272-274).66 Narratives of this sort dominate the 66 Perhaps ironically, such seems to somewhat coincide with the Serbian government's approach to Kosovar Albanians: to illustrate, while claiming the whole Kosovo to belong to Serbia, the government registered solely Kosovar Serbs as voters at the 2006 Constitutional referendum (Stahl "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 133 Church's official position, although certain bishops tend to be more moderate (ibid: 277, Bianchini 2011: 94). Furthermore, the Church is a strong proponent of closer ties with Russia, a position that it propagates using Miloševićand Nikolić-style emotional rhetoric particularly at the meetings with Russian religious and state officials: as, for instance, Serbian Patriarch Irinej once told Russian Patriarch Kirill, [t]he leadership of our country [Serbia] is now influenced by the West, and the Serbian Orthodox Church makes enormous efforts to persuade the Serbian authorities to maintain ties with Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church. I often remind them the words of Nikola Pašić, famous Serbian politician of the first half of the 20th century, who said that we need to tie our small boat of the Serbian Orthodox Church to the ship of the Russian Orthodox Church (Russian Orthodox Church 2013, for other examples, see Barišić 2016: 106-107). Kirill, in his turn, generally shares all critical remarks about the Serbian government made by his Serbian counterpart, believing that "the political leadership of Serbia is lacking for this adherence to principles," and "it should lend an ear to the voice of the Serbian Orthodox Church instead of ignoring it" (Russian Orthodox Church 2013). In recent years, he has visited Belgrade on a regular basis and had meetings not only with the local clergy, but also Serbia's high-ranked officials, expressing an attitude practically identical to that of the Russian government, that is, the unacceptability of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence, the illegitimacy of the 1999 NATO operation, the presence of deep historical and spiritual ties between Russia and Serbia etc (Barišić 2016: 116-119). 4.8. Alternative Explanations Before giving concluding remarks, it is worth reviewing the competing analytical explications of what drives Serbia to be friends with Russia. All of them, however, appear at worst blatantly wrong and at best relatively compelling in explaining single actions/events, but insufficient to shed light on the entire picture. Some authors (e.g. Szpala 2014: 1-2, Żornaczuk 2015: 1, Varga 2016: 194) portray Serbia's amicable policies toward Russia as somewhat involuntary, involving a great deal of Russian coercion and/or chiefly springing from Serbia's energy dependency 2013: 459). "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 134 on Russia. While these accounts, as the discussion above shows, certainly contain a grain of truth, they still apparently underestimate the degree of free will in Serbia's conduct. First, especially collated with Putin's policies in the post-Soviet space, his coercive measures against Serbia seem rare in time and limited in strength. Whereas the Kremlin does not challenge Serbia's EU choice provided that Belgrade does not intend to join NATO, in 2012-2013, Russia was strongly resisting Armenia's and Ukraine's aspirations to conclude EU association agreements. In Armenia's case, that eventually resulted in Putin pushing that country into the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union and in Ukraine's case, in Russia annexing its region (Crimea) and inflaming a war in another one (Donbas). Second, in Serbia, both public opinion and all major politicians steadily support cooperation with Russia, which starkly contrasts with, for instance, contemporary Moldova or pre-Euromaidan Ukraine with their politicians and societies being clearly divided into sizeable Western and Russian camps (Bucataru 2015; Polyakov 2015). As for Serbia's contingency on Russian gas, it should be noted that first, the Serbian government does not seem to have tried to reduce it and second, such a contingency does not prevent a good deal of EU members (e.g. Poland, Germany, the Baltics) from taking a hard stance on Russia. Equally unconvincing seem the accounts pointing to the primacy of Serbia's instrumental motives in its friendship with Russia. Arlyapova (2015: 33) regards Russo-Serbian relations as "rational and pragmatic," arguing that their main driver is economic collaboration rather than historical proximity.67 Yet, this appears to fail to take account of the above-described trends in the evolution of Russia's image in Serbia and the fact that it is exactly history, religion and culture that are commonly emphasised in the Serbian discourse about Russia. Furthermore, as was shown above, for Serbia, its trade with Russia is of comparatively minor importance, strategic economic benefits from that cooperation are questionable, while reputation costs are high. 67 This idea, incidentally, is sometimes directly voiced by Vučić. To illustrate, in October 2015, he told Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev that "Serbia will remain a friend of Russia for rational reasons" (TASS 2015). Likewise, addressing the Serbian Parliament in July 2017, he said Serbia wants to be Russia's friend in order to cooperate economically rather than "because of Pushkin and Dostoevsky" (EurAsia Daily 2017, my translation). "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 135 According to Bieri, what drives Belgrade toward Moscow is that "Putin's Russia is more amenable to the Western Balkans elites and their self-interest in retaining power than the EU" (2015: 3, see also Wohlfeld 2015: 3). This fairly accounts for the close connections that many members of the Serbian elite have in Moscow, however, it hardly explains why Serbia still seeks EU integration instead of, for example, participating in EU-led initiatives just formally without assuming legally binding responsibilities (similarly to the conducts of Belarus and Azerbaijan in the Eastern Partnership). A more moderate and correct formulation of this argument can be found in Szpala (2014: 5) who, when talking about Moscow's allies in Serbia, mentions not the national elite in general, but only "the oligarchs who have built their position by undertaking unlawful actions and using their political ties." Torralba (2014: 8) believes that balancing between Brussels and Moscow puts Belgrade in a unique position the Serbian government could use to endeavour to reconcile the two sides-for instance, in the Ukrainian conflict. In fairness to Torralba, Nikolić once indeed casually mentioned the possibility of such a mediation (Kharkov 2015). Moreover, Serbian officials elsewhere express their discontent with the increased EU-Russia confrontation (e.g. Varga 2016: 194)-apparently, for it is progressively shrinking the room for Serbia's "sitting on two stools." Yet, again, there seems to be no evidence that Belgrade has seriously pursued this goal and acted accordingly, unlike Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko who, taking advantage of his friendly ties with both Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, organised peace talks between them in Minsk in 2014-2015, which consequently helped him enhance EU-Belarus ties as well. On this point, one can agree with Đukić (2015: 33) that currently Serbia is a "watershed" rather than a "bridge" between the West and the East, despite that the latter notion is popular in Serbian domestic discourse. Finally, Torralba (2014: 7) also argues that in formulating its foreign policy doctrine, the Serbian government seems to follow the positioning of Tito's Yugoslavia and its non-aligned status during the Cold War. On the one hand, a certain influence of inertia in contemporary Serbia's foreign policy should not be completely ruled out. To exemplify, Vučić explicitly referred to Tito when proposing a free-trade area in Western Balkans, praising him for excelling at linking Balkan "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 136 nations to each other (Karnitschnig 2017). Moreover, given that the idea of neutrality enjoys considerable popularity among Serbians68 and they still deem Tito the best leader their country has ever had (Pantović 2016), one may suppose Vučić conducts Tito-style policies to gain more popularity. On the other hand, one should not neglect significant differences between today's Serbia and the former Yugoslavia. First, the invariable emotional stresses of Russia's particularity in Serbian domestic discourse appear at odds with the above-discussed Yugoslav pragmatic realpolitik approach to the Soviet Union. Neither is today's policy of Serbia toward the West identical to that of Tito, given its status as an EU candidate state and regular military trainings with NATO forces. Second, in terms of geostrategic importance and capabilities, contemporary Serbia is hardly equal to the former Yugoslavia which was the leader of the Non-Alignment Movement and whose stability was "of decisive importance for maintaining the status quo in Europe" (Reljić 2008: 2). Importantly, Serbian leaders themselves appear to have the same vision: Vučić, for instance, elsewhere presents Serbia as "a numerically and territorially small country" which is ready "to do everything to never be on the list of the countries that were today being sent to hell by the American president" so as to survive in a dangerous world (B92 2017g). Discussion The chapter has demonstrated that in the post-Milošević period, Serbia has largely treated its relations with Russia as an identity issue with the country's approach to them having been mostly emotionally-driven rather than deemed in terms of instrumental cost-benefit calculation. Serbia's behaviour towards Russia generally shares all the characteristics of emotional attraction, implying the durability of Russia's power vis-à-vis Serbia despite conflicting rational interests and negative experiences in bilateral interaction; the spread of the power's scope towards multiple areas, including those seemingly unrelated to identity (e.g. military and economic cooperation); the parallel existence of the Other (the West) and the 68 In 2017, for example, 59% of them supported keeping the policy of neutrality (BCSP 2017: 36) and 51% argued Serbia should abstain from supporting any side in the Ukrainian conflict (ibid: 23). In 2015, 61% considered Serbia to be neither a Western, nor an Eastern state (IRI 2015: 26). "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 137 especially strong intensity of Serbia's attachment to Russia during its conflicts with the Other. Moreover, if considered in parallel with Belgrade's approach toward Brussels, this case study represents a curious situation, where one actor, when determining its foreign policy orientation, finds itself in a position between a side to which it perceives a strong emotional attraction in the practical absence of rational motives to cooperate and another side which it perceives as almost a polar opposite. This situation is probably best summed up by Serbian sociologist Srećko Mihailović who calls Serbia "a country whose heart is in the East and its pocket in the West," noting that "[w]here emotions are concerned, Russia has the advantage, whereas reason is on the side of the Western countries" (Simić 2017b). This configuration of motives makes Serbia a particular case among countries balancing between different (often competing) powers. Some countries navigate between other powers chiefly for instrumental benefits: for instance, as will be shown in the next chapter, Kazakhstan's "multi-vector" foreign policy is usually regarded as a mere attempt to pragmatically capitalise on the comparative advantages of the EU, Russia and China. In other cases, countries manoeuvre between two diverse identities, each of which appeals to substantial parts of their population: to illustrate, Ukraine's straddling between Russia and the EU in 2010-2013 was mostly due to the country's identity being split between the pro-Russian East and the pro-EU West (Kropatcheva 2014). Against this backdrop, Serbia's balancing between a strong affective attachment on one side and considerable instrumental gains on the other is peculiar. If viewed without a linkage to the EU, Serbia's approach to Russia can serve, following Chidley's (2014: 154) constructivist framework of alignment, as an illustrative case of "alignment for identity" (as opposed to security-driven alignments, traditionally considered by neorealists). Also, if viewed as a "special relationship" case,69 Serbian-Russian relations may add to the IR literature on this concept. Indeed, while the US-Israeli special relationship is mainly based on the instrumental benefits both sides receive from it (Bar-Siman-Tov 1998), Germany's 69 As defined by Oppermann and Hansel (2016: 4), a special relationship is "exclusive and relatively durable bilateral relations between states in the international system which are based on mutual expectations of preferential treatment and which are recognised by its members and by outsiders as being qualitatively distinct from other interstate relations in international politics." "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 138 special relationship with Israel is primarily grounded in morality, in the country's perception of historical responsibility towards Jews for the Holocaust (Oppermann and Hansel 2016, see also Chapter 6 in this thesis), Serbia's special relationship with Russia mostly rests on a sense of identification and an attendant affective attachment. An important peculiarity of this case study is that it focuses on emotion and identity as foreign policy determinants, proceeding from the theorisation of states as groups of people. Indeed, while the general argument that affect may play a key role in interstate friendship is not new, existent studies on this topic (e.g. Eznack 2013; Eznack and Koschut 2014) center solely on decision-makers' emotions. Likewise, Gvalia et. al. (2013), arguing that Georgia's foreign policy is largely defined by its state identity, explicitly consider only its political elite's views on it. This chapter's analysis also provides opportunities for speculation about the further tendencies in Serbia's foreign policy. First, thanks to emotions, Serbia's affection to Russia tends to be long-lasting with little dependence on Russia's current level of development. By contrast, whether Serbia finds its alignment with the EU to be rewarding hinges more strongly on the bloc's present success and objective (in the first place, socio-economic) accomplishments. Second, to keep its reward power high, Brussels needs to regularly reinforce it by intense deliberate activities (public diplomacy projects, material aid etc). Moscow, contrariwise, is able to widely capitalise on the emotional ties created by the preceding generations of Russians and hence, the activities the Kremlin has to undertake nowadays generally need not be as expensive and intensive as those of the EU. In the long run, if the EU falls into a deep crisis or if Russia's socio-economic development significantly enhances, Belgrade is likely to voluntarily drift towards its traditional ally. Yet, speculating on the shorter-term dynamics of Serbia's conduct necessitates assessing the current weight of emotional and pragmatic forces among the Serbian society and political elite. Some analysts argue that the affective component is of particular importance in Serbian politics. For example, Dimitrijević (2009: 44) fears that support for EU integration in Serbia is "shallow" and "can thus be annulled by any stronger emotional experience." Đorđević (2009: 267) posits that Serbs are especially obsessed with historical references, a feature which he, however, regards "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 139 as common for the whole region, arguing that "the Balkan nations 'produce' much more history than they are able to digest." Toporov (2017) considers Russo-Serbian partnership to rest on "the Serbs' irrational love for Russia," stating that "[u]nlike the Russian and Serbian leaders, the Serbian voters are not pragmatics or cynics but idealists." Finally, Jovanović (2010: 13) imputes affective reasoning to the Serbian political culture in general, contending that "[t]he suppression of the rational and the domination of an emotional attitude to politics is one of the serious constant features and faults of the Serbian political mentality." On close inspection, nonetheless, it appears that these analysts somewhat overrate the role of emotions in Serbian political life and in fact, Brnabić's recent statement that should Serbia face a strict choice between Russia and the EU, the country will eventually opt for the latter (Simić 2017a) reflects both the above-described opinion polls results and the country's foreign policy in the recent past (e.g., in the cases of ICTY and NATO with which Serbia, after some resistance, eventually began to collaborate) as well as in more distant history. Indeed, while Serbia may have long wanted to align with Russia on the basis of identity, mundane considerations of geography, along with historical economic disparities between the East and West, places Serbia in a situation where the bulk of its economy remained linked to "the West," whether in the form of the Habsburg Empire, Germany, or today's EU (Konitzer 2011: 109). Serbia's present-day policy of balancing seems to mirror how the country currently perceives the strength of the rational and affective forces. On the one hand, the EU's reward power is high enough to keep Serbia on a European track despite the growing sense of enlargement fatigue inside the EU and a series of crises the bloc has been lately undergoing (for details, see Patalakh 2017), but too weak to induce Serbia to totally relinquish its stance on the sensitive issues of its national identity (Russia, NATO and Kosovo). Concurrently, the country's emotional attraction to Russia seems sufficiently strong to ensure Belgrade's friendliness towards Moscow despite Brussels' pressure and the Kremlin's occasional coercive measures, but too scanty to encourage Serbia to voluntarily fall into the Russian orbit without palpable material benefits. Lastly, one may argue that if Serbia enters the EU, emotional attraction to the "Emotional" Attraction: Serbia-Russia 140 West is likely to develop in the Serbian mentality over a long horizon. In social psychological terms, nonetheless, this is possible, but not necessary. Research shows that proximity correlates both with strong attraction and strong repulsion (Finkel & Baumeister 2010: 432): otherwise stated, there are always higher odds that you will love or hate someone who is close to you or with whom you often deal, here everything depends on the experience of interaction in each concrete case. Under the current conditions, a boost in the EU's attractiveness for Serbia hardly seems likely, for attraction is known to correlate with dyadic reciprocity, that is, someone can be expected to be particularly liked by someone (s)he particularly likes (ibid: 429-430). Currently, the EU may be providing more material assistance to Serbia than Russia, but the bloc treats Serbia in the same way as it treats any other EU candidate. By contrast, Russia is perceived in Serbia as the country which was most actively standing for Yugoslavia in 1999, which most actively supported Serbian independence aspirations during the Ottoman rule and which most actively backs Serbia on Kosovo and ICTY issues. "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 141 5. "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU "In some rare cases, a friendship between two people benefits both of them, and what's more, in some rarer cases, it benefits both of them equally." ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism. Introduction In the post-Soviet space, and especially in the Central Asian region, the EU's relations with Kazakhstan stand out. To cite a few facts, Kazakhstan is the country where the bloc in 1993 opened its first-which until 2010 was its only-delegation in Central Asia. Moreover, Kazakhstan is the sole Central Asian state that participates in the Bologna Process and has a second generation agreement with the bloc.70 Furthermore, Kazakhstan is the region's only state for which the EU is the main source of FDI and the largest trade partner, accounting for more than a third of its foreign trade and over a half of its FDIs (EU External Action 2017). To some, the topic of the Kazakhstani policies toward the EU may appear unoriginal, since it has attracted some scholarly attention in recent years. Yet, this paper is peculiar in its focus and scope. While other studies approach Astana-Brussels relations from either a chronological (e.g. Anceschi 2014, Kurmanguzhin 2016) or a law perspective (e.g. Kembayev 2016) or focus on one single dimension of Kazakhstan-EU ties (e.g. Bossuyt & Kubicek 2015, Collins and Bekenova, 2017), this chapter concentrates on driving motives behind Kazakhstan's EU policies as well as factors attendant on their success. In so doing, I argue that Astana's approach vis-à-vis Brussels to a large extent fits with the rational attraction rationale, introduced in section 3.3.4. Importantly, under the assumption that the Kazakhstani elite's policies toward and perceptions of the EU-as well as vice versa-are part of their broader and coherent understandings of their country's place in the world, this study widely resorts to relevant parallels for building and substantiating its argument. The chapter primarily draws on a broad range of existing studies on EU and Kazakh foreign policies (including those published in 70 The EPCA was concluded in December 2015 to replace the 1999 EU-Kazakhstani PCA. "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 142 Russian), aiming to perform their systematic review in order to not only make their critical assessment, but also gain a complete picture on the topic. In terms of structure, the study consists of three parts, successively discussing, first, the primary determinants of Astana's foreign policy in general (section 5.1), second, the driving motives of its behaviour toward the EU in particular (section 5.2), and third, factors contributing to Brussels' readiness to cooperate with Kazakhstan regardless of its regime remaining authoritarian (section 5.3). The analysis concludes by pondering on the role of pragmatism and identity in Kazakhstan's EU policies as well as the strengths, weaknesses and further dynamics of Brussels' power with respect to Astana. 5.1. Astana's Foreign Policy: Fundamental Motives Even a brief look at primary sources and academic studies on Kazakhstan's foreign policy reveals its two primary characteristics, namely the prioritisation of economic goals and propensity to multi-vectorism (that is, collaboration with all regional powers), with the latter being consequential on the former. Both seem to emanate from the objective needs of Kazakhstan's development as well as the personal ideas of the country's elite and, in the first place, its long-standing autocratic leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Indeed, on the one hand, Kazakhstan's location in the center of Eurasia predetermines that the country would highly capitalise on the region's possible reconnection (Kuchins et. al. 2015: 2). Moreover, being landlocked and situated distantly from the world's main communication channels makes it especially important for the country to have friendly relations with its neighbours (Bolekbaeva and Selivanova 2015: 210). Concomitantly, what qualitatively distinguishes Kazakhstan from the other Central Asian states is its leader's strong personal dedication to the idea of economic modernisation, which dominates most of his speeches and addresses (Ambrosio and Lange 2014), epitomising itself in his argument that "an open economy and integration into the world's powerful economic zones is the only means of survival for a nation and a state" (Nazarbayev 1999, my translation). Nazarbayev's simultaneous commitment to economic modernisation and preservation of authoritarianism (discussed below) seems reminiscent of the developmental patterns of contemporary China and the so-called "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 143 "Asian tigers" in the 1970-1990s. Incidentally, Nazarbayev himself contends he is influenced by the ideas of Lee Kuan Yew (Vanderhill 2017: 47), Singapore's first PM who, for many, symbolises authoritarian modernisation. Nazarbayev's ideas are largely reflected in his policies which make him stand out among the region's leaders: Jarosiewicz (2016: 29), for example, considers him one of the only post-Soviet autocrats who tend to respond to a growing external and domestic pressure by acceleration of economic reforms rather than isolation and screw-tightening. Importantly, his economic reforms have resulted in a substantial growth of the middle class, reduction of poverty as well as increase in the average income per capita and monthly wages (for details, see ibid: 22), which may substantially explain why Kazakhstan is one of the few post-Soviet states, where most people feel positive about the Soviet Union's break-up (ibid: 21). Nazarbayev's economic motivations correlate well with his rejection of geopolitical competition, in particular, the ongoing so-called "New Great Game" in Eurasia (Konopelko 2018: 3). In this vein, the Kazakhstani elite contests Putin's efforts to transform the EAEU from an economic to a political integration group (Kuchins et. al. 2015: 9, Jarosiewicz 2016: 27, Konopelko 2018: 13, Patalakh 2018: 37-38). Simultaneously, Astana criticises US foreign policy for prioritising security and political issues over economic ones, arguing that Washington's harsh stances on Russia and Iran are detrimental to Kazakhstan's energy and economic needs (Kuchins et. al. 2015: 9): incidentally, Nazarbayev personally decried the West's economic sanctions on Russia, calling them "barbaric" for being deleterious to Kazakhstan's economy (RFE/RL 2015). Another peculiarity of Nazarbayev is positive thinking inherent in his speeches: in this spirit, admitting the challenges in which Kazakhstan finds itself due to its geographical situation, he still tends to present them as an opportunity rather than a limit to the country's development (Ambrosio and Lange 2014: 546). Foreign policy issues occupy, on average, 18.5% of Nazarbayev's annual addresses, the share which is comparable to Russian Presidents' addresses in the noughties, however, unlike them, Nazarbayev's are primarily devoted to economic issues (ibid: 541-542). Rather than criticising any state's developmental model, Nazarbayev prefers speaking of comparative advantages which characterise each of them and "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 144 which Kazakhstan, according to him, needs to integrate (ibid: 546). Apart from the obvious security motivation to keep good neighbourly relations with its two biggest neighbours, Russia and China (ibid: 549), Astana's approach toward them is largely driven by economic reasons. In a nutshell, Kazakhstan's interest in China is determined by, first, its developing model, commonly attractive for autocracies, second, China's rapidly growing economy which provides a fruitful ground to the enhancement of mutual trade, and third, China's growing investments in the Kazakh economy-in the first place, infrastructure projects, the main of which is "The Silk Road Economic Belt" (Hug & Zhang 2010: 6-7, Konopelko 2018: 3). Importantly, all these also represent China's advantages over Russia, which further reinforces Astana's desire to collaborate with Beijing (Koch, 2013: p. 114). As for cooperation with Russia, Kazakhstan is chiefly motivated by the aspiration to find new markets (Nurgaliyeva 2016: 95) and draw long-term benefits from the mutual economic integration (Kuchins et. al. 2015: 9),71 the results of which, however, have been rather pessimistic thus far for Astana: not only has Kazakhstan's trade volume with the EAEU's members declined (Eurasian Economic Commission 2017: 18), but also the Russia-West sanctions war and the Russian rouble's steep depreciation has pulled down the EAEU's other members, including Kazakhstan. To justify the multi-vectorness, Nazarbayev bases his foreign policy on the ideology of Eurasianism, 72 which, in his own words, presupposes that "our [Kazakhstan's] model for development will not resemble other countries; it will include in itself the achievements from different civilizations" (quoted in Engvall and Cornell 2015: 69). One of the main components of his Eurasianism is a Eurasian Union, an integration group encompassing the former Soviet Union's 71 Those who regard Kazakhstan's participation in the EAEU to be political may dismiss the long-term-economic-benefits argument as cheap talk, citing the organisation's poor record as well as the fact that although Russia and Kazakhstan share their longest borders with one another, Moscow is Astana's only third largest trade partner. Yet, orientation toward long-term results seemы to be a common line in Nazarbayev's presidential style, largely manifesting itself in his annual presidential addresses (for details, see Ambrosio & Lange 2014), Eurasianist ideology (for details, see Mostafa 2013) as well as the Kazakhstan-2030 and Kazakhstan-2050 developmental strategies. Moreover, inclination to long-dated goals is also evident in his foreign policy moves. For instance, such is the case with Kazakhstan's recent accession to WTO, of which Nazarbayev had been an active proponent, though it will hardly give his country any short-term gains given that, as Anceschi (2014: 5) notes, "[there are] limited benefits that full WTO membership could bring to a recourse-based economy." 72 There are also domestic goals for the use of this ideology (for details, see Mostafa 2013: 166). "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 145 states, the idea of which Nazarbayev expressed for the first time in 1994. As becomes clear from the analysis of his articles and speeches, his understanding of the union's basic principles has been practically invariable over time. Indeed, in 1994, 2004 and 2011, Nazarbayev methodically suggested that the then-future integration group should be grounded on economic pragmatism, voluntary membership, equality of its members and taking cognizance of differences in their developmental levels (Mostafa 2013: 164-165; Nurgaliyeva 2016: 95). Unlike the Russian version of Eurasianism, which has a neo-imperial, anti-Western and anti-globalisation character (Mostafa 2013: 161-163), Nazarbayev's is formulated in a positive manner (i.e., from the in-favour-of rather than against perspective) and centres around economic integration, chiefly omitting the issues of ideology and security (ibid: 167, Nurgaliyeva 2016: 97). In this vein, aiming to better engage Kazakhstan in international economic relations, he contends the integration group should, first, function as a platform for interregional cooperation (Mostafa 2013: 165; Konopelko 2018: 14) and second, be open for other states, among which he mentioned, in particular, Western countries (Nurgaliyeva 2016: 97) and Turkey (Kuchins et. al. 2015: 21). Primacy of economic considerations manifests itself in Nazarbayev's policies in the EAEU. For example, Nazarbayev advocates a careful approach to the pace of integration and the acceptance of new members, which is in a particularly marked contrast to geopolitically inclined Putin's Russia that calls for acceleration of integration and pulls other states into the union with little heed of the potential economic consequences of such moves (Patalakh 2018: 37). Remarkably, whereas in Russia, Eurasianism is mostly a domain of-conservative and often marginal-intellectuals and is employed by the government only on ad hoc basis (Mostafa 2013: 161-163), in Kazakhstan, Eurasianism is not only an essential element accompanying various areas of the country's social and political life (for numerous examples, see Mostafa 2013: 166), but also seems to be seated relatively deeply in people's minds and not dismissed as ideological bunkum. To illustrate, Kuchins et. al. (2015: 3), having interviewed numerous Kazakh experts and officials, note that it is their common trait to identify their country as Eurasian. Some studies (e.g. Engvall & Cornell 2015, Jarosiewicz 2016, Nurgaliyeva 2016), however, appear to view the Russia factor as most critical in Kazakhstani foreign "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 146 policy, sometimes going as far as reducing the entire policy of balancing to Nazarbayev's desire to ensure protection from Russia's possible aggression. Consider, for example, the following excerpts. Kazakhstan's expanding partnership with China has been imperative for reducing its dependence on Russia (Engvall & Cornell 2015: 68). To reduce the dependency on Russia, Nazarbayev worked to create a favorable environment for foreign investors (Nurgaliyeva 2016: 97). Reforms are Kazakhstan's way of protecting itself from plunging into the zone of Moscow's civilisational, political and economic influence, from economic stagnation and the feudal socio-political order seen in Azerbaijan (Jarosiewicz 2016: 7). Economic cooperation with China, Russia's important economic partner, is intended to mitigate Moscow's aspirations in Central Asia, but also to boost the country's economic development (ibid: 48-49). At one level, accounts of this sort seem to possess a grain of truth: indeed, a number of empirical studies point to the Kazakhstani elite's growing considerations of sovereignty in light of Russia's coercive energy measures in the 1990s (Koch 2013: 112-113) as well as some concern they have about Russia's aggression in Ukraine (Kuchins et. al. 2015: 10) and Kazakhstan's overdependence on Russia (Koch 2013: 114). Moreover, Nazarbayev himself tends to praise China for pursuing a policy that is "aimed against hegemonism" (quoted in Engvall and Cornell 2015: 68), which could be plausibly interpreted as criticism of Russian neo-imperialism. Also, especially in recent years, he has undertaken a number of-mostly symbolic, but still-steps arguably designed to reduce Russia's ideological influence in Kazakhstan and prevent Russian separatism in its northern regions (for details, see Holmquist 2015: 2, Roberts 2015: 5, Jarosiewicz 2016: 41-43). Nonetheless, viewing this motive as primary would seemingly mean placing an overemphasis on its significance in Astana's foreign policy which, in fact, would apparently be of little difference had Russia no neo-imperial ambitions. First, such accounts underestimate the important role of the considerations of economic development and modernisation, deeply rooted in Nazarbayev's thinking, as well as the EU's (discussed below) and China's high instrumental value for these goals. Second, as some scholars rightly point out, in Central Asia, the EU does not possess-and does not even try to possess-hard power capabilities comparable to "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 147 those of Russia (e.g. Kuchins et. al. 2015, Konopelko 2018). Hence, for Astana, closer ties with the bloc may hardly serve as a workable counterbalance against Moscow, especially considering that in 2014, the bloc failed to protect even Ukraine, a country whose ties with the EU are far closer than those of Kazakhstan. Third, should reducing Moscow's leverage be Nazarbayev's primary motive, he would not have likely entered the Russia-led Customs Union and its successor, the EAEU, thus dramatically heightening its level of dependence on Russia-all the more so given that the Customs Union was initiated in 2009, a year after the Russian aggression in Georgia, and the treaty on the EAEU was signed in May 2014, at the peak of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Fourth, in case of a revolt, Putin is perhaps the only one that may try to save Nazarbayev's regime, similarly to how he acts in Syria. In view of this, it comes as no surprise that the two countries enhanced their cooperation in 2011, against the backdrop of the Arab Spring and intensifying protests in Russia (Engvall & Cornell 2015: 69-70).73 Fifth, Moscow hardly appears in a position to repeat the Crimean scenario in Northern Kazakhstan: as empirical analysis shows, potential pro-Russian irredentism in that region, while not impossible, is still limited (Diener 2015), which starkly contrasts with the pre-2014 Crimea, where separatist notions, already strong, were being further inflamed by the Kremlin's activities (Roslycky 2011). Last, in light of the growing discontent among ordinary Kazakhs about China's increasing influence in their country, coupled with their generally positive view of Russia (Koch 2013), Astana's friendship with Moscow seems itself to be a balancing act with regard to Beijing. Consequently, it appears fairer to deem Russia as a factor limiting Kazakhstan's foreign policy options rather than determining them. This point can be illustrated on Kazakhstan's foreign policy freedom in security sphere which Ambrosio and Lange (2014: 550) describe as "more aspirational than practical." For one thing, Astana refrains from getting involved in any form of military collaboration with 73 For the same reason, wrong seem those authors who argue that Kazakhstan would love to enhance its cooperation with the West, though its geographical location limits such aspirations: Ambrosio & Lange (2014: 549), for instance, state that "the full extent to which this foreign policy is truly multi-vectored is limited by Kazakhstan's geographical realities: its immediate neighbourhood is obviously more consequential than those farther afield, which means that true multi-vectorness is restricted by the precedence that relations with Russia and China take over relations with the United States and Europe." "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 148 Beijing for that may engender a harsh reply from Moscow (ibid). In a similar vein, Kazakhstan's cooperation with NATO, although substantial compared to those of the Central Asian states, is still limited, in large part because Nazarbayev realises the alliance will never have the same influence in the region as Moscow (Kuchins et. al. 2015: 17-19) and hence, for him, the possible danger this cooperation produces exceeds the benefit it gives. 5.2. Kazakhstan's Approach to the EU: Key Determinants Kazakhstan's approach to the EU can be probably best summarised by the word "instrumentality" which for the Kazakhstani regime is apparent in two aspects. The first of them is the bloc's perceived competence, that is, the available knowledge, technologies and investment which Nazarbayev needs for Kazakhstan's economic development and modernisation. Importantly, the EU's competence manifests itself both against the absolute standard as well as compared to the other regional powers: Koch (2013: 112), for instance, notes that "the strategy of encouraging Western involvement in the resource economy [was] a response to concrete economic conditions in the early 1990s, and the fact that Russia lacked sufficient financial capacity and technology to develop Kazakhstan's immense oil resources."74 Indeed, the idea of the EU being advanced and competent is pronounced in Kazakhstan's official discourse with Nazarbayev elsewhere citing the need to utilise European experience in various areas, such as judicial system (Vremya 2017), education (Tengri News 2014), EAEU integration (Forum 2014) etc. Perhaps the most vivid example in this regard is the 2009-2011 "Path to Europe" national program which Nazarbayev personally initiated to enhance all-round cooperation between the EU and Kazakhstan and use "positive European experience" across multiple spheres (President of Kazakhstan 2008). Europe and the West top the list of the regions which Nazarbayev mentions in his addresses, with the majority of those references dealing with the economic sphere and being dedicated to such international organisations as the EU, the OSCE and the EBRD (Ambrosio & Lange 2014: 543). Also, Astana resorts to the help of Western consultants to conduct 74 Jarosiewicz (2016: 30) views it as a paradox that Kazakhstan turns to the West for advise on development, though it is commonly considered as one of the most committed friends of Russia. "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 149 economics reforms: since 2011, for example, one of them has been "Tony Blair Associates", a company owned by former British PM.75 Consistent with the competence argument is also the fact that Astana appears to need partnership with Brussels more than vice versa. Analysing EU-Kazakhstan relations in the two recent decades, Kurmanguzhin (2016: 107-114) shows that it is Astana that has primarily been pushing them forward, suggesting initiatives that were often ahead of the bloc's the then approaches to cooperation with Central Asia. Moreover, a closer look at Astana's major initiatives, made in 2000, 2006, but especially in 2009-2014, during the work on EPCA, makes it clear that their focus was on the long-term investment, economic and energy collaboration (2015: 36-40, 2016: 107, 109). Some propositions also regarded political cooperation and democratisation, yet those were rather of auxiliary character and furthermore, Nazarbayev's sincerity in their regard may be generally called into question given his reluctance to carry out any substantial political reforms in Kazakhstan (see below). Notably, instrumental competence seems to determine Astana's approach toward the West in general, of which the EU is-perhaps the most illustrative, but still-only a particular instance. To illustrate, elaborating on Kazakhstan's aspiration to cooperate with its second largest FDI source, the US, one interview-based qualitative study points out that Kazakh elites emphasize that the United States possesses competitive advantages in technology, business and legal best practices, institutions, and overall values that, if applied in the region, would be beneficial to its long-term development (Kuchins et. al. 2015: 18). Also, in contradistinction to the other Central Asian countries, whose collaborations with NATO are constrained to the Partnership for Peace program, Kazakhstan also participates in the alliance's Planning and Review Process and has agreed NATO's Individual Partnership Action Plan and Partnership Action Plan against Terrorism. Despite certain negative outcomes that partnership may bring about, given Kazakhstan's membership in the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation 75 Western commentators, however, tend to heavily criticise this cooperation (e.g. Mendick 2016), in particular, because Blair was noted for providing Nazarbayev with PR recommendations on how to cope with the reputation consequences of the violent breaking of a workers' strike in the city of Zhanaozen in 2011 (the so-called Zhanaozen massacre). "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 150 (see Shaymergenov & Biekenov 2010: 37-38, 47), the country still engages itself in NATO's initiatives, viewing them as a way to train and modernise its national army in accordance with the best world standards and enhance its prestige through participation in international peacekeeping operations (for details, see ibid: 39-44). The second dimension of the EU's instrumentality relates to Nazarbayev's wide image-promotion campaign which serves him not only to attract investments, but also, importantly, to legitimise his regime.76 For this goal, the usefulness of the West in general and the EU in particular is determined by the fact that they seem to symbolise, in Nazarbayev's view, progress and modernity. In this respect, even his positioning of Kazakhstan as a Eurasian rather than a Central Asian state should be most likely interpreted through these lenses. In this respect, in 2014, he went even further, suggesting to rename the country to "Kazak Eli" to get rid of the "stan" suffix that, according to him, makes the country poorly distinguishable from its neighbours, pushing off tourists and investors (BBC, 2014).77 To promote the image of Kazakhstan as a forward-thinking country, in recent years, the Nazarbayev regime has been especially active in hosting big international events, such as the 2011 Asian Winter Games, EXPO-2017 etc. Importantly, from the Kazakhstani elite's perspective, such events appear to serve, in the first place, the goal of image-enhancement, aiming at economic development only to a lesser extent. 76 According to Dzhuraev (2012: 2), autocracies frequently point to the arguably important role they play in world debates and international organisations so as to gain domestic legitimacy. Moreover, as argued by Schatz (2006), resorts to foreign policy as a strategy of domestic legitimation are especially common where and when authoritarian regimes have a shortage of internal sources of legitimacy. Albeit this is not exactly Kazakhstan's case in general, given that Nazarbayev can always point to the relative success of his economic reforms, one can still argue international sources of legitimacy came in handy for him, for instance, during the 2014-2015 dramatic depreciation of the Tenge, Kazakhstan's national currency. Interestingly, in his comparative study on the foreign policies of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on the one hand and Kyrgyzstan on the other, McGlinchey (2012) came to the conclusion that sometimes autocratic leaders may be more supportive of the West than democratic ones, which happens exactly because of the formers' need for an additional source of gaining domestic legitimacy. 77 Though that particular proposition has never been implemented, it was consistent with the overall spirit of Nazarbayev's rule, which provides for taking highly revolutionary, sometimes overtly radical, steps. Among such, one can remember the 1998 transfer of the national capital to Astana, the 2017 decree on the Kazakh language's transition to a Latin-based script, the call to gradually establish a so-called "trinity of languages" which will transit to English all national education starting from the penultimate year of high school (Nazarbayev 2017) as well as the 1993 initiation of the Bolashak program providing talented Kazakhstanis an opportunity to study in the leading international-predominantly Western-universities with a state scholarship if they later work in Kazakhstan for at least five years. "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 151 Indeed, as Nurmakov (2016: 121-123) shows, the messages accompanying those events represent the goals and the will of the ruling class with little consideration of the public's desires, mostly addressing foreign governments and investors and not tourists, as officially claimed by the government. Moreover, most of such events take place in the country's most developed cities, making little, if any, contribution to bridging the gap in regional disparities. Also, Kazakhstan widely uses its membership in international (primarily, Western) fora for the purposes of nation-branding and regime legitimation-or, put another way, "[t]he legitimacy of the Nazarbayev regime, in the post-2007 years, became, inter alia, the function of the degree to which Kazakhstan is formally engaged with Western-sponsored initiatives related to the human dimension" (Anceschi 2014: 17). For example, researchers commonly note that Kazakhstan has largely portrayed its 2010 OSCE Chairmanship as the evidence of the country's being a reliable member of the international community. Yet, again, as scholars widely argue, albeit the chairmanship was coupled with political and human rights reforms within the framework of the 2009-2012 National Human Rights Action Plan, they turned out to be mostly cosmetic, failing to make real improvements (Hug & Zhang 2010: 10, Engvall and Cornell 2015: 44-47, Tsertsvadze and Axyonova, 2013: 1, Bossuyt & Kubicek 2015: 186-187, Kuchins et. al. 2015: 20). This discussion brings us to the need to take a closer look at the EU' perception of Kazakhstan, which is done below. 5.3. Kazakhstani Political Regime and Brussels' Approach to Astana According to Kembayev (2016: 202), Kazakhstan's poor record on democracy and human rights is the primary factor which hinders the deepening of the Brussels-Astana relations. As he puts it, the mutual dialogue in this field, unlike in the security area, "cannot be qualified as harmonious" (ibid: 194), given that the EU continuously has concerns in this regard (ibid). Yet, this notwithstanding, the overall approach of the bloc toward Astana remains positive.78 Indeed, despite an 78 Incidentally, the academic community seems to replicate a similar approach: in the author's observation, Western researchers, even while taking account of the country's authoritarian regime, still portray Kazakhstan in a somewhat positive light, which compares with, for instance, Russia that "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 152 autocratic regime, the EU conceives of Kazakhstan, in the words of Kavalski and Cho (2018: 56), as "[a] potentially promising pupil[]" in the Central Asian region (along with Kyrgyzstan). Researchers largely note that the bloc's officials commonly appreciate Kazakhstan's ambitiousness, influentiality and predictability (Bolekbaeva and Selivanova 2015: 226), calling the country the region's "anchor of stability" (Kuchins et. al. 2015: 21) and prizing its reliability as an energy partner (Konopelko 2018: 7). Remarkably, in 2014, at the peak of the Ukrainian crisis, when Putin's Russia was being highly isolated, European leaders and high-ranked officials-for instance, François Hollande and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier-paid official visits to Kazakhstan to discuss, first, their countries' own cooperation with Kazakhstan, in particular in the energy and infrastructure areas, and second, the possibility of Astana serving as a possible host of Russian-Ukraine peace talks, the plan which, however, was never actualised, for all rounds of those talks eventually took place in Minsk instead (Engvall & Cornell 2015: 70; Kuchins et. al. 2015: 21).79 What has contributed to the EU's overall positive attitude to cooperation with Kazakhstan? The first reason seemingly consists in the country's progressiveness relative to its Central Asian fellows. More precisely, Kazakhstan appears to be the sole stable well-to-do Central Asian country with an open foreign policy: indeed, while Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are too poor, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are too withdrawn and inclined not to follow the rules of the game (Dave 2007: 4, Kuzmina 2014: 5). Furthermore, notwithstanding a poor democracy record in absolute terms, Kazakhstan is the region's second most democratic country after Kyrgyzstan (EIU 2017), thanks to which the EU, guided by the principle of "not put[ting] all Central Asian countries within the same authoritarian basket" (Anceschi 2014: 16), tends to somewhat close its eyes on electoral fraud in that country. The second factor deals with the behaviour of Kazakhstan itself, which set it apart from the other post-Soviet autocracies. On this point, Nazarbayev is is usually depicted negatively. 79 Interestingly, not only Western powers view Kazakhstan as a potentially good mediator: in late 2016, for instance, Russia, Turkey and Iran backed for holding peace talks between the Syrian government and opposition in Astana, seven rounds of which the city hosted in 2017 (see Mühlberger 2017 for details). "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 153 emblematic of what Hug (2009: 3) calls "smart authoritarianism", i.e., utilising pronouncedly temperate methods to stay in power, "not boiling his opponents, but using the levers of power to more subtly suppress dissent". Indeed, the comprehensive analysis done by Vanderhill (2017: 46-48) shows that, in contrast with some of his fellow autocrats, Nazarbayev tends to justify his right to rule by real socioeconomic results rather than pure repressive measures, use comparatively lenient ways to block access to information (e.g. in Kazakhstan, foreign websites do not get blocked and local ones get restricted only sometimes), allow foreign NGOs to work in the country and fund national NGOs. Also, Kazakhstan somewhat resists adopting Russian-like restrictions on civil society, especially when it comes to the issues salient for Western audience. In this vein, the Nazarbayev administration avoids supporting the harsh stance on gay rights promoted by Russia, both at home and internationally (for examples, see Patalakh 2018: 36-37). In other instances, Kazakhstan passes softer versions of Russian regulations: this is the case with the recent Kazakhstani law on NGOs which places certain restrictions on them, but, unlike a similar Russian law, does not oblige NGOs receiving international funding to get registered as "foreign agents", an expression meaning "spies" in Russian (EurasiaNet 2015). Kazakh political scientist Rustem Kurmanguzhin (2016: 110) argues that the Kazakhastani government considers democratisation as a long-term goal which should be attained gradually and where external intervention is counterproductive. He also points to the fact that Kazakhstan's 2009-2011 "Path to Europe" program contained reforms in the country's electoral legislation, thanks to which, inter alia, the national parliament was transformed into a multi-party one (ibid: 113). Yet, arguments of this sort should apparently be regarded with a grain of salt, bearing in mind that in recent years, as international rankings show, Kazakhstan has become even more authoritarian. For instance, in Democracy Index, the country's score decreased from 3.30 (132nd rank) in 2010 to 3.06 (139th rank) in 2016 (EIU 2010: 7, 2017: 10), its Freedom score worsened from 5.5/7 in 2010 to 6/7 in 2017 (Freedom House 2010a, 2017a) and its press freedom score deteriorated from 78/100 in 2010 to 85/100 in 2017 (Freedom House 2010b, 2017b). Moreover, many of those policies are likely to have been part of Nazarbayev's PR campaign. "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 154 This is, for instance, the case with the "Path to Europe" program, the adoption of which was overtly linked to Kazakhstan's upcoming OSCE chairmanship (President of Kazakhstan 2008). Remarkably, the program included a humanitarian dimension, yet, hardly considering it a priority: not only it was listed last, but also, while officially it was aiming to develop the social partnership institution, tolerance and liberal attitude toward other religions as well as use European experience in gender policy (ibid), in fact, in implementing those provisions, the government confined itself solely to organisation of four conferences and attraction of volunteering organisations from Europe to develop the institution of volunteering in Kazakhstan (Government of Kazakhstan 2008). This program seems to illustrate Nazarbayev's general approach to human rights initiatives, with regard to which, as one interview-based study notes, the Kazakh authorities' working agenda is punctuated by . . . 'strategic deadlines'. Those coincide with major bilateral events such as high-level conferences or review meetings. Once a conference or a meeting of this type is over, the implementation and follow-up of agreed-upon activities tends to be put on hold or slows down fundamentally because of bureaucratic obstructionism and the lack of political will (Voloshin 2014: 48). Therefore, more compelling is the argument of Dave (2007: 6) that deems Nazarbayev's political reforms as instrumental, directly linking them to the West's pressure and noting that they have mainly led to the regime's further strengthening thus far despite that they have laid some foundation for a possible democratisation in the future. Hence, it is open to debates whether Nazarbayev's devotion to modernisation in general should necessarily be regarded as a sign of lofty ideals, given that, despite the innumerability and magnitude of his reforms (for their overview, see Jarosiewicz 2016: 30-32, 45), they hardly touch his personal leadership. In view of this, some authors suggest that Nazarbayev and his elite need economic reforms because economy is the source of their own enrichment as well as the foundation of the legitimacy of their rule, noting that the Kazakhstani regime is based on an unwritten "social contract" which implies that society stays silent on the authoritarian regime, getting in return peace, stability and relatively high income (Koch 2013: 115, Jarosiewicz 2016: 23-24). The "smartness" of Nazarbayev's authoritarianism is especially striking in "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 155 Kazakhstan's approach to the EU, especially if viewed in comparison with the other post-Soviet autocracies. For instance, the country's high officials actively work with the Western audience by publishing in international magazines articles arguing that Kazakhstan is a democratic state (e.g. Idrissov 2011) and proudly highlighting Astana's accomplishments in establishing close economic ties with the EU (e.g. Nazarbayev 2014). More importantly, instead of resolutely rejecting EU suggestions on human rights, like other post-Soviet autocracies tend to do, Kazakhstan tends to treat them with conspicuous consideration and politeness. In 2011, for example, EU and US criticism induced Nazarbayev to refrain from holding a referendum on the prolongation of his presidential term till 2020. Later, answering to remarks about violations at the 2011 presidential elections, Astana promised to make improvements, a behaviour which at that time was in a stark contrast to the overtly falsified 2010 Belarusian elections and violently stifled protests after them (Sivokin 2011). In general, when accused of human rights violations, Astana tends to politely reply in a manner that-at least to some extent-recognises democracy and human rights as values, acknowledges Kazakhstan's underdevelopment in this regard compared to the West, and accepts the need to improve. At worst, Nazarbayev, similarly to other post-Soviet leaders, asks to respect Kazakhstan's internal traditions, but still using a polite language. In July 2013, for instance, he responded to a British journalist as follows: "We are grateful to you for the advice, but no one has the right to instruct us as to how to live and how to build our country" (Savchenko 2015). In other cases, Nazarbayev endeavours to shift the attention from Kazakhstan's weakness toward its achievements: in this vein, in March 2016, Nazarbayev gave the following reply to Jean-Claude Junker's remark about human rights in Kazakhstan: [The EU] is a very important, both economic and political, partner [of Kazakhstan]; therefore, we take very positively all friendly advice of my friend, Mr. Junker, regarding the political situation [in Kazakhstan] and so forth. I am grateful to you for congratulating me on last year's elections and this year's parliamentary elections, when observers from 60 countries, who amounted to over a thousand, said our elections are held on the full basis of democracy, freedom, competition and adherence to all the laws which are necessary in such cases (Radio Azattyq 2016, my translation). "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 156 To draw a parallel, in such cases, Putin widely resorts to blaming the West for double standards (for details, see Headley 2015), 80 while Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko tends to have recourse to overt insults: to exemplify, in 2011, when the then President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso accused him of human rights abuse, Lukashenko gave the following comment: On the subjects of bastards like Barroso and others-who is Barroso anyway? There was a Barroso in Portugal. But they kicked him out and put him to work in the European Commission. The last thing I want to know about European officials is who said this or that. There are thousands of them. They're all crooks. So I don't want to talk about any Barrosos or other bastards like that (Rettman 2011). Furthermore, Astana agrees to participate in the EU's human rights dialogues (HRDs) which, according to Anceschi (2014: 16), go far smoother than the bloc's HRDs with, for instance, Turkmenistan. Likewise, in 2011, Kazakhstan agreed to take part in the 2011 Civil Society Seminar in Almaty, where the other Central Asian delegations declined to take part (ibid: 17). However, again, the Nazarbayev regime's participation in the HRDs should be viewed in terms of its aforementioned desire to seek legitimation rather than democratise. In this vein, Anceschi (ibid: 16) notes that Astana tends to-quite successfully-marginalise the most disputable matters at HRDs. Similarly, as the analysis of the agenda of Kazakhstan's 2010 OSCE chairmanship shows, the regime managed to shift the focus from democracy and human rights in their liberal sense to the issues of security, environmental security, interethnic and interreligious relations, illegal labour migration etc (Faizova 2011). In their analysis of how the Kazakhstani and EU elites depict each other, Ospanova et. al. (2017: 79) point to a general difference in the areas the two sides accentuate: while Kazakhstani politicians mainly concentrate on bilateral economic and energy ties, the EPCA and the facilitation of the visa regime, largely underlining their country's role in improving the bilateral collaboration, EU officials focus more on Kazakhstan's reforms of the rule of law and regional governance, making no 80 Notably, the fact that anti-Westernism and strong unacceptance of the West's criticism is present in Putin's and absent in Nazarbayev's foreign policies across various instances correlates well with their approaches to domestic protests: while Putin is known for never conceding at any price, Nazarbayev is more attentive to public opinion (Jarosiewicz 2016: 29). This may refer to the psychological complexes, such as narcissism and bullyism, intrinsic in Putin's personality (for details, see Forsberg and Pursiainen 2017: 233-238) and apparently absent in Nazarbayev's. "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 157 mention of visa regime simplification. In like manner, while describing the EU, the Kazakhstani elites primarily highlight its achievements on the integration path, in building a single market and reaching a high status in the world economy, whereas European officials tend to put the emphasis on the value-based nature of the bloc (ibid: 79-80). Declining international organisations' human rights reports as allegedly biased and imposing Western standards, Astana resorts to creating national commissions which take an "alternative perspective" of democracy and human rights to defend the regime (Savchenko 2015). This is largely in accord with Nazarbayev's alternative narrative on democracy which, following the summary of Vanderhill (2017: 47), rests on 1) arguing that liberalism or democracy must be a gradual, evolutionary development in Kazakhstan and that political stability is more important than immediate reform; 2) using the language of democracy to describe the political regime in Kazakhstan; 3) claiming that the process of democratization in other countries has resulted in violence, instability, and economic hardship; 4) arguing that external involvement or pressure is inappropriate and not conducive for democracy. Even a brief look at this alternative narrative reveals certain contradictions between its elements, which seems to mean that the Kazakh regime has little intention to present any coherent replacement of the common understanding of democracy, but rather, aims to exploit any appropriate argument to halt it. This notwithstanding, as opinion polls show, the Kazakhstani public at large mostly accept-or at least report the acceptance of-this official narrative, believing that their country is democratic (or moving toward democracy) and needs a strong leader (see ibid: 49 for details). Similar contradictions are evident in Kazakhstan's approach toward Europe as well. On the one hand, Nazarbayev generally follows the international community's rules of the game, uses Kazakhstan's OSCE chairmanship and friendship with the EU for his own PR and tries to convince Europe of his regime's being democratic. On the other, he sometimes rejects democratisation attempts, labelling them as pressure and intervention, as reflected in statements like "[w]e have seen attempts to use instruments such as observer missions during national elections to apply pressure by one group of countries on another" (quoted in ibid: 48). To give a similar example, in 2011, Astana threatened to designate "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 158 persona non grata one European parliamentarian that had visited the city of Zhanaozen after the massacre (Anceschi 2014: 15). The third factor relates to the EU's perception of and interest in Kazakhstan. One significant aspect of this factor is the relative unimportance of Kazakhstan for the bloc, which is a manifestation of the EU's general treatment of Central Asia,81 the region that Kavalski and Cho describe as "[a] ghost[] in the vacuum of the EU's external affairs" (2018: 53) and "merely a bridge (if not-quite literally-a mere refueling station) between the EU's other and strategically more important commitments" (ibid: 54). On the one hand, this may appear puzzling, given that the EU-unlike the US, Russia and China-possesses a well-defined long-term formal strategy which delineates its priorities in Central Asia. Yet, because of the region's distance from the EU, both in geographical and political terms-in the 1990s, Brussels remarkably perceived it as a Russian sphere of influence-as well as integration-related problems inside the bloc and problematic interstate relations in Central Asia, the bloc's policies in that region tend to be, as Kavalski and Cho put it, "lack[ing] focus" and "largely reactive" (ibid: 54; see also Kuzmina 2014: 4). A good manifestation of this point is that fact that the EU elaborated a common strategy toward the region only in 2007, sixteen years after the Soviet Union's break-up.82 The Strategy's adoption itself was, as phrased by Voloshin (2014: 43-44), "a concerted attempt to recalibrate the EU's ties on a modified basis where realism and idealism no longer contradict each other." This reflects the bloc's failure to view democracy promotion in Central Asia as its moral duty (Kavalski & Cho 2018: 81 Remarkably, to understand EU policy toward Kazakhstan, considering the bloc's approach to Central Asia as a whole seems important, because, even though the 2007 EU Strategy for Central Asia underlines the significance of treating each Central Asian state individually (Council of the EU 2007: 6) and moreover, as I stated above, the EU is argued to conditionally discriminate between the region's "potentially promising pupils" and "problematic cases" (Kavalski and Cho, 2018: 56), allocating 70% of its aid through bilateral instead of region-wide programs (ibid: 59), the discourse analysis of the media shows that European officials tend to relate EU ties with Kazakhstan to the bloc's overall policy toward the region. As Ospanova et. al. (2017: 79) put it, "[a]lthough Europeans recognize closer relations with Kazakhstan compared to its neighbors, they do not treat Astana as a privileged partner in the region," noting that the Kazakhstani elites, by contrast, willingly emphasise every accomplishment of their country in its ties with the EU. 82 This does not mean EU members are equally interested in and contributing to collaboration with Central Asia: pointing to the fact that the 2007 Strategy was primarily authored by Germany and adopted during its presidency, scholars extensively contend the document somewhat portrays German interests in the region as common EU ones (Laumullin 2011: 31, Voloshin, 2014: 43). Moreover, Kavalski and Cho (2018: 59) note Germany's successors have arguably been less prone to continuing Germany's active stance on Central Asia. "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 159 54)-all the more so because its current priority in this respect is the Western Balkans (ibid: 60)83 and because EU members generally feel Central Asia lacks breading ground for democratisation (Bossuyt 2016). In this light, it comes as no surprise that the EU allocates relatively scarce resources on the region's democratisation (Voloshin, 2014: 45), the mission of the EU's Special Representative for Central Asia is, as Kavalski and Cho (2018: 60) put it, "understaffed and underfunded" and instead, the bloc mostly opts to deal with the region "together [through] coordination among international structures" (quoted in ibid).84 Also, with respect to various EU documents on Central Asia, such as the 2007 Strategy and Indicative Programme, the 1999 PCA, the new EPCA etc, researchers widely point out that they mostly contain general phrases, being vague on specific actions concerning democracy and human rights and failing to clarify conditions linking EU assistance to compliance with democratic norms (Hug and Zhang 2010: 4; Tsertsvadze and Axyonova 2013: 2, Voloshin 2014: 46, Bossuyt and Kubicek 2015: 178). Interestingly, that the EU treats Central Asia as a region of secondary significance seems to epitomise a larger trend, beneficial for the Nazarbayev regime. Indeed, while China and Russia are mainly involved in a rivalry with the West in East/Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe correspondingly, Kazakhstan finds itself in an opportune position of a country with which major powers want to collaborate, simultaneously paying relatively little attention to it. Of higher salience, however, seems another aspect, namely the EU's instrumental need of Kazakhstan. Indeed, scholars widely use the word "pragmatic" to describe not only Astana's approach toward Brussels, but also Brussels' interest in Astana. Gubaidullina (2011: 36), for instance, defines the two approaches as "attendant pragmatism" and "liberal pragmatism" respectively, while Anceschi (2014: 21) goes even further, referring to the entire EU-Kazakhstani ties as "a tyranny of pragmatism" (for similar accounts, see Malysheva 2010), noting that it is energy issues that are at the core of bilateral agenda while values and democracy 83 Again, this is not to say that all EU members share the same perception of the bloc's democracy promotion priorities: Bossuyt (2016), for instance, shows that Poland's relative passivity in Central Asia is balanced by its active engagement in democracy promotion in the Eastern Partnership states. 84 Interestingly, the EU, in turn, tends to play the role of a scapegoat for its member countries which refrain from criticising Kazakhstan, trying to make Brussels do this "dirty job" instead (Bossuyt and Kubicek 2015: 184). "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 160 are of marginal importance (ibid: p. 16). Some researchers (e.g. Akkazieva 2012: 220, Kuzmina 2014: 5; Voloshin 2014: 55) note that the bloc's main interest-in Turkmenistan as well as Kazakhstan-lies in the energy sphere, in line with the diversification of its energy supply: indeed, with these two states, the EU signed Memoranda of Understanding regarding energy issues as early as in 2006 and 2008 respectively.85 Of some importance for the EU are also infrastructure, given that routes for the growing EU-China trade run through Central Asia, and security sphere, for Brussels deems Central Asia as, first, a transit corridor for the smuggling of narcotics from Afghanistan and, second, a region where political destabilisation may produce terrorism and extremism (Akkazieva 2012: 220). To enhance their attractiveness as investment recipients, the EU seeks to advance Central Asian states' financial stability and economic reforms as well as their further integration in the world economic and financial systems (Kuzmina 2014: 7). Accordingly, in its policies toward Central Asia, the bloc, as the indicative programmes of its Development Cooperation Instrument suggest (European Commission 2007, 2011, 2014), primarily concentrates on the furtherance of regional collaboration and good neighbourly relations, improvement of living standards and lessening of poverty as well as energy, environmental and water projects. Incidentally, the 2007 Strategy also mentions human rights and democratisation as dimensions of the EU's activities, but they are coupled with good governance (Council of the EU 2007: 7-9), to which the EU, as some researchers argue, tends to give priority. Meden (2012: 59), for instance, points out that Brussels is shifting its focus from democracy promotion to fight against corruption, on paper, however, continuing to demand democratisation. Likewise, Bossuyt and Kubicek (2015: 178) note that the budget of the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights for Central Asia is relatively scarce and within the framework of the Development Cooperation Instrument, 60-90% of aid is devoted to poverty reduction, economic reforms and good governance. 85 Remarkably, in view of the bloc's desire to lessen Russia's energy influence, the 2007 Strategy considers the development of infrastructure in the North-South direction and pipeline diversification as European security issues (Council of the EU 2007). "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 161 Hence, prioritisation of stability over human rights86 reflects the bloc's overall attitude to the entire region, yet, this particularly manifests itself in relation to instrumentally important states. In this spirit, in 2008-2009, the EU removed all economic sanctions from Uzbekistan, even though its regime had hardly shown any improvements in its treatment of human rights following the violent suppression of protests in Andijan in 2005. Commentators largely interpreted that decision pointing to Uzbekistan's significance as the host of a German military base and a potential gas supplier for the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline, the idea of which the bloc was being actively promoting at that time (Malysheva 2010: 31-32, Voloshin 2014: 49). By the same token, the study of Bossuyt and Kubicek (2015) contends that in Kyrgyzstan, the EU is comparatively more active on advancing liberal democracy than in Kazakhstan, where the bloc primarily promotes conditions which may lay the long-term foundation for it, such as administrative capacity of the state: hence, instead of increasing pressure and demands on Nazarbayev, Brussels prefers cooperating with him on the issues he welcomes. Among the reasons for this difference, the authors point to Kazakhstan's importance relative to resource-poor Kyrgyzstan, the fact that the Kyzgyz government asks for some help in democratisation whereas Astana rejects it as well as the fact that a possible instability in Kazakhstan may have more negative consequences for the region than instability in Kyrgyzstan (ibid). Discussion The study has shown that Kazakhstan's cooperation aspirations vis-à-vis the EU are largely dictated by instrumental considerations of economic modernisation and regime legitimation, corresponding to the general multi-vectorism of its foreign policy. Moreover, the success of Nazarbayev's EU policies is possible to a great extent thanks to Brussles' concomitant positive stand on friendship with Astana, 86 Again, this point should not be interpreted as though all EU members and institutions share the same attitude. The European Parliament, for instance, is traditionally stronger committed to democracy and human rights, criticising Astana more than the other EU bodies (Tsertsvadze and Axyonova 2013: 3; Kembayev 2016: 189-190). A similar situation is in OSCE, where the US and the UK, driven by political and ideological rather than economic considerations, used to strongly oppose Kazakhstan's 2010 chairmanship, while the position of Germany and Germany-led EU members was far more moderate (Fülscher, 2007: 2). "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 162 which stems not only from the relatively high instrumental value of Kazakhstan for the bloc and its generally passive approach to democracy promotion in Central Asia, but also because of Kazakhstan's being more progressive and pro-European in comparison with the region's other states. This argument is in line with Anceschi's (2014: 21) conclusion that "pragmatism may be viewed as the essential glue of the entire relationship between the European Union and Kazakhstan," a statement which, however, seems to necessitate further specification, for the very assertion that Astana pursues a pragmatic foreign policy87 may be interpreted in multiple ways. Indeed, depending on an IR study, the notion of pragmatism may pertain either to an actor's preferences (referring to practical rather than ideological considerations) or an actor's methods (synonymously with such words as "instrumental", "useful", "expedient"). Accordingly, one can observe commonalities and differences between the foreign policy of Kazakhstan and those of other states which researchers also describe as "pragmatic." Unlike "pragmatic" Uzbekistan (Sayfullayev 2016) and Azerbaijan (Makili-Aliyev 2013), both of which carry out isolationist policies so as not to fall into the orbit of any big player, Kazakhstan, contrariwise, endeavours to open up to the world, actively participating in international organisations and integration groups. While Tashkent has U-turned its foreign policy orientation at least twice in the two recent decades, Astana tries to conduct a steady and predictable foreign policy. Unlike Qatar, whose foreign policy Khatib (2013) describes as pragmatic in the sense that it rests on short-term needs and contains incoherences, Kazakhstani foreign policy, contrariwise, is driven by long-term interests and involves considerable planning. Similarly to the pragmatism of Indian foreign policy-meaning "a rejection of . . . 'idealism' or 'moral posturing' and, instead, a focus on power and material interests" (Miller & De Estrada 2017: 27)-Nazarbayev, while not overriding ideology completely, uses it not to derive his decisions from it, but, rather, to support what he wants to do on the basis of material 87 Notably, my argument is that Astana pursues a pragmatic policy toward the EU for real, which, in fact, may be different from merely talking about pragmatism. In Kazakhstan's case, pragmatism-however ironical it may seem-seems to be part of the country's foreign policy ideology: the notion of pragmatism seems to have penetrated into the country's official discourse so profoundly that few, if any, official speeches and documents fail to mention it. It is illustrative that Kazakhstan's Foreign Policy Concept (Embassy of Kazakhstan in Armenia 2017) makes six mentions of the word "pragmatism" and its derivatives, while Russia's Concept (MFA of Russia 2016), which is 2.5 times longer, mentions this word only once. "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 163 interests. This seems identical to what Khan (2014: 1) refers to as Obama's "liberal pragmatism" which was grounded in the "understanding the realities of the situation and making decisions based on thorough research of these realities." This is not to say that Kazakhstan's relations with the EU are completely unrelated to its identity: having friendly relations with the bloc corresponds to its self-portrayal as a Eurasian state and a bridge between the West and the East. On this point, however, noteworthy is that the notion of a bridge can be found in the official discourses of many states, each of which, again, uses it in a particular way: while the Serbian elite utilises it to balance the instrumental and identity-based foreign policy needs and the Putin regime exploits it to dissociate itself from the West and justify Russia's "great power" status amidst the decline of its influence after the Soviet Union's collapse (Svarin 2016), Astana applies it preponderantly for the purposes of domestic modernisation, to justify its close collaboration with multiple actors with the aim to capitalise on their competitive advantages. A number of studies maintain that in Central Asia, Kazakhstan possesses the strongest European identity (e.g. Engvall & Cornell 2015: 57), one of the manifestations of which is that its elite openly criticises the legacy the Soviet Union left in their country (Jarosiewicz 2016: 40).88 The idea of Kazakhstan having a European identity, however, should be considered with a reservation, since Kazakhstan hardly falls into the group of post-Soviet states whose strong and wide-ranging self-identification with Europe is coupled with their rejection of Russia which they deem as a barbaric, uncivilised state.89 In Kazakhstan's case, friendship with the EU, even though fervently desired, appears to be simply instrumental to the dominant official narrative of the country striving to be progressive and modern-mostly in the economic and technological areas-and therefore, is limited to these areas. Hence, for Astana, collaborating with Brussels per se seems to have little to do with self-identification and is largely delinked from the Kazakhstani elite's emotional perception of the EU as well as other actors. Concurrently, it is connected to their 88 This makes him different from other Central Asian leaders, in particular, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev who is notorious for regretting about the Soviet Union's collapse (Regnum 2012). 89 Such is, for instance, the case with Georgia (Kakachia and Minesashvili 2015) and the Baltics (Berg & Ehin 2009). "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 164 conception of the bloc's strengths relative to other actors-again, primarily in the areas that interest them. Yet, one may wonder whether this state of motives is stable and whether it is possible that in the mid or long term, Kazakhstan, identically to Russia, will end up having a strong anti-Western identity, all the more so because analogies between present-day Kazakhstan and Russia during Putin's first two presidential terms are often cited (e.g. ibid: 23). From the viewpoint of domestic factors, this seems unlikely, since the Kazakh society lacks the imperial ambitions which are deeply rooted in Russians, making Putin's anti-Westernism especially effective. Yet, the foreign policy of Kazakhstan, similarly to those of other post-Soviet autocracies, largely hinges on the ideational beliefs of the incumbent leader, due to which some states (e.g. Belarus) are or were engaged in a long-term confrontation with the West with no imperial ambitions. From this perspective, since Nazarbayev has concentrated all power in his own hands and has yet to nominate a successor, which researchers consider to be one of his main drawbacks (e.g. ibid: 6), it is barely possible to foresee whether Kazakhstan's next leader will share Nazarbayev's foreign policy beliefs.90 For Brussels' power vis-à-vis Astana, the current configuration of Kazakhstan's motives represents both opportunities and limitations. For example, one may assume that the Nazarbayev regime will undertake more profound democratisation if the occurrence of certain changes in external or internal factors enhances the bloc's instrumental value for and, consequently, its leverage over Astana. In this respect, one may draw a parallel with the West's efforts to push for transparency in Kazakhstan, which had been largely fruitless until 2014-2016, when a worsening economic situation in Kazakhstan induced Astana to initiate major institutional reforms in that regard (Öge 2017). Likewise, Nazarbayev's enthusiastic push for rapprochement with the bloc in 2009-2010 was arguably associated with negative consequences of the 2008 financial crisis for Kazakhstan (Kurmanguzhin 2016: 90 On this point, an analogy can be drawn with Uzbekistan: after the death of its lonstanding dictator Islam Karimov in September 2016, pundits commonly argued the victory of former PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev would imply the regime's toughening. However, contrary to such expectations, Mirziyoyev proved himself to be rather a reformist in the first year of his presidency, albeit the sincerity of his moves remains open to interpretation (Abdurasulov 2017). "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 165 111). The opposite tendency also seems to be at play. Ospanova et. al. (2017: 78), for instance, note that in 2011-2013, the official framing of the EU in the Kazakhstani media was more negative than before and after, with the emphasis being put on the bloc's inability to cope with the Eurozone crisis, shortage of solidarity and growing social tensions between its members. Approximately at the same period, as pointed out by Tsertsvadze and Axyonova (2013: 1), Kazakhstan's interest in the EPCA was seemingly diminishing. Both observations are suspiciously simultaneous with the EU's the then arguably increasing demands of a stronger commitment to democracy (ibid) and the above-mentioned Russia-Kazakhstan rapprochement, related to the unfolding Arab Spring and the Zhanaozen massacre. Interestingly, since Brussels' approach toward Astana specifically and Central Asia in general is also substantially determined by instrumental benefits, shifts in the bloc's stance toward the region have also been commonly related to changes in external conditions which augmented the region's instrumental value for the EU. For instance, after 9/11, the EU's (and the West's in general) focus toward the region increased because of the incipient international operation in Afghanistan (Kavalski & Cho 2018: 56). In general, one can sense some commonalities between the Kazakhstani and Serbian elites. Both view themselves as "bridges," trying to pursue balancing policies. Both have suffered from the Ukrainian crisis, for it narrowed the room for the balancing. Both often resort to the notion of pragmatism to explain their political decisions. Yet, while Vučić's "pragmatism" seems actual only with respect to the EU (in the form of reward-based alignment), remaining largely ostentatious in relation to Russia, Nazarbayev's is at play toward both.91 All in all, Kazakhstan's approach vis-à-vis the EU is by and large in accord with the rational attraction rationale, that is, it is to a great degree determined by the expertness the Kazakhstan elite ascribes to the bloc in the areas they deem as priority with its scope being generally limited to those areas and its weight hinging on the experience of previous interactions. This compares with Serbia which cooperates with Russia 91 Though it is slightly off the point, it can be noted that regional contexts around the two countries also differ. While Kazakhstan has the image of one of, if not the, most Europe-oriented in Central Asia, Serbia tends to be seen from outside as a failure of Europeanisation in the Western Balkans, much due to its friendship with Russia. "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 166 even where the cooperation brings frankly questionable benefits and whose attraction to Russia does not appear to substantially decrease even when Moscow behaves coercively. Remarkably, Astana's collaboration with Brussels seems to represent a case of true attraction and is hardly reducible to the characteristics of the reward-based hard power. Indeed, though Kazakhstan's desire for partnership has an overall instrumental and pragmatic nature with emotions and values being of hardly any significance, it is coupled with a genuine and firm long-term motivation to modernise the country, for which European experience is of use. Consequently, it is Astana that usually pushes the bilateral ties forward and not Brussels, which would be observed in the case of hard power grounded in rewards. Moreover, as I showed above, mere geopolitical considerations, although present, hardly play the main role in Astana's approach to Brussels. Given this, what is the potentially most successful way for the EU to forward its agenda? A number of NGO researchers (Dave 2007, Fülscher 2007, Hug & Zhang 2010, Tsertsvadze & Axyonova 2013, Boostra & Tsertsvadze 2016) and academic scholars (Konopelko 2018) suggest the EU take a harsher stance on democracy and human rights promotion in Kazakhstan, which generally seems somewhat idealistic,92 given that they all concomitantly note that Brussels can hardly use its conditionality if there is no membership opportunity for Kazakhstan. Those scholars fairly point to the fact that the bloc has some leverage over Astana, which stems from the fact that Kazakhstan cares about its international image (Hug 2009: 16),93 is afraid to be completely locked into the EAEU and is economically connected too closely to the EU (Boostra & Tsertsvadze 2016: 8). Thus far, however, Nazarbayev's regime seems to have generally succeeded in mitigating it even when Brussels was in a stronger position. For example, even though NGOs commonly 92 Especially implausible seem the accounts arguing human rights should be at the core of the bloc's attention: Boostra & Tsertsvadze (2016: 7), for example, suggest that "[a]lthough the EU has little influence in Central Asia, adherence to democratic principles should be the centrepiece of engagement". 93 Yet, some of these accounts seem to push this argument too far, idealising Nazarbayev's intentions and neglecting the fact that no matter how much Nazarbayev cares about Kazakhstan's image and modernisation, staying in power is ultimately more important for him. A good instance of such an account is Tsertsvadze and Axyonova's suggestion that "[a] clear EU stance on Kazakhstan's democratic and human rights commitments would be mutually beneficial: political stability rooted in democratic principles would strengthen the country's profile on the global stage, while the EU would gain a more reliable partner" (2013: 2). "Rational" Attraction: Kazakhstan-EU 167 advised the bloc to use its leverage in the talks over EPCA (e.g. Tsertsvadze & Axyonova, 2013: 2), Astana eventually managed to get the long-hoped-for agreement with only cosmetic political reforms. What seems to limit the EU's power with regard to Astana is not only the skilfulness of Nazarbayev's diplomacy and the bloc's interest in Kazakhstan as an energy partner, but also the fact that Astana's multi-vectorness leaves it options to manoeuvre, a factor due to which Brussels tends not to exert too much pressure on Astana not to induce it to exchange its partnership with the bloc for closer friendship with Russia and China (Fülscher 2007: 3, Bossuyt & Kubicek 2015: 183). Also, some authors (e.g. Hug & Zhang 2010: 10) advise the Western states to take cognizance of the fact that the time window when they have a comparative advantage in technology is gradually closing, so their leverage over Kazakhstan is progressively waning. This argument, nonetheless, appears questionable at least for two reasons. First, some studies show that though the economies of a number of developing states are growing fast, developed Western states are still likely to have far better GDPs per capita and life standards by 2050 (e.g. PWC, 2015). Second, scholars commonly argue that thanks to democracy, freedoms and liberal values, the West has the environment ensuring its long-term competitive advantage in research, science and innovations (e.g. Cox, 2012). "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 168 6. "Social" Attraction: Germany―Israel "[T]o be a complete victim, may be another source of power." ― Iris Murdoch, The Unicorn, 1963. Introduction A wide variety of scholars, commentators and politicians depict German-Israeli relations with resounding commendations. The two states enjoy what their elites commonly label as "a special relationship," the references to which in both countries' political lives are so common that, as one paper notes, "there are few speeches on German-Israeli relations from high-level representatives of the two countries which do not in some way or the other include such references" (Oppermann and Hansel 2016: 5). Moreover, diplomats and politicians often portray the special relationship as something miraculous, saying that the two states "have made the impossible possible" (quoted in Wittlinger 2018: 1-2), given that after the end of the WWII, in light of the then exceptionally strong-and apparently insurmountable-fury toward Germany inside the Israeli society, the odds that the two states would once become close friends seemed indeed outside (Engert 2016: 29). On their part, scholars, in like spirit, describe German-Israeli relations as one of the most illustrative instances of a special relationship in IR, along with US-UK and US-Israeli ones (Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 2). The relationship's "specialness" is manifest above all in the two countries' close ties across various areas. To give some examples, Israel is one of the few countries with which Germany holds annual government consultations with both countries' delegations being invariably led personally by the heads of their governments.94 Bilateral scientific cooperation is such that, as one study puts it, "[b]y the beginning of the twenty-first century, few Israeli scientists had not worked with German colleagues or had not received German funding, and no field of science remained outside a German-Israeli purview" (Gardner Feldman 2012: 162). Germany tops the list of countries having twin cities in Israel, while Israel for Germany is second among non-European states in this respect (ibid). Finally, since 2014, Israeli 94 Since 2008, the consultations have taken place every year with the sole exception of 2017, when Chancellor Merkel cancelled it over her disagreement with the continuous construction of Jewish settlements. "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 169 citizens have been able to get assistance in German diplomatic missions in states where Israel has none (Asseburg 2015: 2). No less important is the two countries' perceived significance of each other. Germany considers Israel as one of its top partners, by and large alike to the US, France and Poland (Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 5). Likewise, inside Israel, Germany is commonly named its second (after the US) best friend (Aruch 2013: 45, Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 5). With regard to the latter, what the US and Germany have in common is not only their importance as perceived by Israel, but also the content of their policies toward that country. In this respect, Gardner Feldman points to, first, the contiguity of Washington's and Berlin's approaches toward Tel Aviv,95 which can be observed even throughout the periods of their deep bilateral controversies, for example, in the first half of the 2000s (2012: 180), and second, the fact that certain German-Israeli instruments of cooperation, such as the R&D fund, are directly patterned on analogical US-Israeli ones (ibid: 163). Of interest for this particular study is the fact that Germany's96 approach toward Israel is coupled with the sense of guilt for the Nazi regime's anti-Jewish crimes, which makes Germany "the gold standard for guilt" (quoted in Engert 2016: 30) and "a role model in confronting the past" (Engert 2014: 96, see also ibid: 111). Rensmann (2004: 169) argues that Germany represents "a central arena for analyzing the impact of collective guilt" in the sense that Germans' feeling of collective shame and guilt toward Jews are honest and true, are echoed throughout a wide range of life spheres and constitute a substantial part of their national identity. Research shows that not only has the FRG's policy of "coming to terms with the past" (Vergangenheitsbewältigung) succeeded far better compared to the analogous policies of Germany's WWII allies (see Schmidt 2016 for Japan, Art 2005 for Austria and Sierp 2009 for Italy), but also this process has given certain inspiration to other EU member states, reinforced European integration and may still serve exemplary to other regions, in the first place, East Asia (Nijhuis 2016). 95 Following some international authors (e.g. Khderi 2016) and given the non-recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital city by most countries, I use "Tel Aviv" as the metonymy for Israel―and not "Jerusalem," as do Israeli scholars (e.g. Aruch 2013, Alperovitch 2017). 96 In the discussion hereinafter, the words "Germany" and "German" always pertain only to the FRG in the sentences that contextually refer to both the preand post-reunification periods. "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 170 This chapter makes a critical overview of Germany's attitude to Israel since the WWII, making a specific focus on the two recent decades, that is, the chancellorships of Schröder and Merkel. Using primarily secondary sources, I show Germany's policy vis-à-vis Israel has continuously been substantially affected by the normative factor (so-called "historical" or "moral responsibility") which has not always been strongest, but it has invariably had a substantial impact on the FRG's policies regarding issues crucial for Israel. To put in this thesis' terminology, German foreign policy has been to a great extent consistent with the logic of social attraction which, in the end, has secured the overall high level and relative stability of bilateral relations against the background of changes in the international system and the material needs of the two countries. Structurally, I first analyse the role this motive has played at the elite (section 6.1) and societal levels (section 6.2) in Germany, following which I confront my argument against alternative explanations which emphasise the principality of rational considerations in Germany's cooperation with Israel (section 6.3). In the last section, Discussion, I recapitulate my argument, ponder on the characteristics of Israel's power vis-à-vis Germany, speculate on their possible development in the future and make relevant comparisons with the cases analysed in the two previous chapters. 6.1. German Political Class and the Theme of Moral Debt Starting from Konrad Adenauer, the FRG's first post-war chancellor, German leaders have continuously recognised their state's crimes against Jews committed in 1933-1945, offering their apologies and noting German moral responsibility toward Israel. Though the scope of those recognitions has been ranging from Adenauer's mere excuses presenting the crimes as perpetrated by a small group of Nazis to Presidents von Weizsäcker's 1985 and Rau's 2000 full-fledged apologies admitting the guilt of the German nation as a whole (see Engert 2016 for details), all German leaders repeated the very idea of German historical responsibility for the crimes. Notably, what gave those apologies a high degree of plausibility is the fact that the speeches of German leaders have been constantly underpinned with evidence of their remorse, such as the readiness to bear high domestic costs (see below) and/or make substantial material payments (ibid: 30). All in all, throughout the post-WWII "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 171 period, not only has the German elite fulfilled all the components necessary for the Christian account of the apology, namely doing penance (Adenauer's offer of material compensation), demonstrating genuine remorse (Chancellor Brandt's 1970 kniefall in front of the Warsaw ghetto memorial) and admitting Germans' guilt (Weizsäcker's 8 May 1985 speech to the Bundestag, where he publicly confessed the crimes committed by Germans), but also they publicly asked Israel for forgiveness (Rau's 2000 speech to the Knesset), a step going beyond the minimal constituents of contrition (Engert 2014). At one end, one hardly can fully disprove the argument of sceptics like Wittlinger who reminds us that "[i]t is difficult, if not impossible, to judge to what degree these expressions of guilt and remorse are sincere or merely symbolic, rhetorical or even strategic" (2018: 10). Yet, some observations cast doubt on whether German leaders' sincerity can be dismissed so easily on such grounds. First of all, Germany's moral responsibility for the Holocaust has been confessed by all Germany's post-WWII governments irrespective of their political orientations (Khderi 2016: 140-141). On top of that, since 1998, the country's special responsibility toward Israel and the recognition of Israel's right to existence have been mentioned in all coalition agreements, be they dominated by the SPD or the CDU/CSU (Streletz 2014: 312). Even those chancellors that were commonly considered to be indifferent toward and/or critical of Israel never went as far as to reconsider the special relationship with Israel which has remained, as Belkin (2007: 9) puts it, "the cornerstone of German policy in the Middle East" for many consecutive governments of the FRG. Indeed, even though Adenauer used to refrain from admitting the German nation's collective guilt for the Holocaust (Gardner Feldman 2012: 135), he still publicly acknowledged Germany's moral responsibility toward Israel as a driver of his behaviour (ibid: 133). Even though Brant was a proponent of balancing between Arabs and Israelis in the Middle Eastern conflict, he still confirmed a few times his commitment to the special relationship, emphasising their "historical and moral character" (Oppermann and Hansel 2016: 14). And even though Gerhard Schröder was noted for his coolness vis-à-vis Israeli diplomats (Gardner Feldman 2012: 154) and publicly stating he would not stand criticism of Germany for its part crimes any longer (Engert 2016: 43), his government included "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 172 a number of Israel's articulate supporters (see below) and it was him who later famously said "Israel will always get what it needs to uphold its security, at the time when it is needed" (quoted in Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 15). Second, noteworthy are the particular strength and expressiveness of German high officials' statements about Berlin-Tel Aviv friendship, which sometimes make them somewhat comparable with those of the Serbian elite about Russia. In the last twenty years, these have included references to Germans' responsibility toward Israel as part of their national identity (Gardner Feldman 2012: 134) and, even more prominently, references to Israel's security as Germany's raison d'etat (reason of state)97 with the latter being widely used, inter alia, to defend the exports of weapons to Israel that are argued to sometimes nearly contravene German export control norms (Aruch 2013: 49-50, Busch 2013: 2, Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 22). Remarkable is German ministers' occasional resort to especially high-flown phrases, such as "whoever threatens Israel also threatens us [Germans]" (quoted in Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 18), "[w]henever it comes to Israel, things run differently" (quoted in ibid: 22) with the special relationship being named "a cornerstone of German foreign policy" which "is not negotiable" and "is not attached to any reservations" (quoted in ibid: 16). Also, in different periods, German leaders were noted for mentioning their country's historical responsibility toward Israel in their conversations with the third parties, in particular, US officials (Bartos 2006: 38-39, Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 12). Finally, in their support of Israel, the German elite shows the willingness to overcome domestic public opposition to it, a trend not only observed by researchers (e.g. Belkin 2007: 15), but also directly mentioned by German leaders. Consider, for example, how one study describes Merkel's 2008 speech to the Knesset: Merkel asked what it meant to have a "unique relationship" in concrete policy expressions, and how Germans should react to the reality "that a clear majority of European respondents say that Israel is a bigger threat to the world than Iran." She continued her questioning: "Do we politicians in Europe fearfully bow to public opinion and flinch from imposing further stricter sanctions on Iran to persuade it to halt its nuclear programs?" Her answer was clear and indirectly acknowledged 97 A principle that postulates the superiority of a state's interests, justifying any steps which are necessary for their defence, even if they contradict legal and moral norms (Aruch 2013). "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 173 the dualities underlying German attitudes: "No, however unpopular we make ourselves, that is precisely what we cannot afford to do" (Gardner Feldman 2012: 177). Third, notable is the treatment of German moral responsibility toward Jews as a matter of personal importance by a number of German high-ranked officials. Among those currently in office, perhaps the most vivid example is Angela Merkel whose particular attention to the Israeli issue scholars attribute either to the fact that she spent her childhood in the GDR, a country that refused to assume responsibility for Nazi crimes (e.g. Khderi 2016: 142, Streletz 2014: 314) or to her being a priest's daughter (e.g. Bartos 2006: 29). As evidence of her special personal friendliness toward Israel, one can remember that Merkel was its ardent supporter as early as in 2002-2005, when she was the opposition's leader in the Bundestag (Bartos 2006: 29), that as the chancellor, she paid her first official visit to Israel (Streletz 2014: 314), started to actively deal with Middle Eastern issues personally, while in the Schröder government it had mainly been the FM's sphere (ibid), initiated annual Israeli-German governmental consultations with her personally being the invariable leader of the German delegation (ibid: 315) and put forward the initiative to recognise Israel as a "Jewish state" (Asseburg 2015: 6, Khderi 2016: 142, Streletz 2014: 313). Among the figures of the 1998-2005 SPD-led government, apt examples are FM Joschka Fischer whose personal concern for Israel, in the words of Gardner Feldman (2012: 150-151), "made possible an unlikely personal connection between a Green Party member and the then-Likud prime minister, Ariel Sharon" (see Bartos 2006: 9, 27-28 for details on his activities) and Otto Schily, the Minister of the Interior (for details about him, see ibid: 29). In general, examples cited by Gardner Feldman (2012: 150-154) show that having friendly ties with their Israeli counterparts has been common among many German statespeople since the 1950s, including those whose political affiliations may have been at odds with those of respective Israeli officials.98 In the 2000s, the German-Israeli friendship group was 98 Israel, on its part, admits and appreciates German leaders' personal contributions to the German-Israeli special relationship. Remarkably, even though since 2010, Merkel has been increasingly more critical of Israel's policies in Palestine, Israeli officials have never reversed it. For example, in recent years, PM Benjamin Netanyahu named her "a true friend of Israel and the Jewish people" (The Jerusalem Post 2017), prizing her for "genuine commitment to the security of Israel" (MFA of Israel 2018), while President Shimon Peres awarded Merkel with a Presidential Medal of "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 174 second largest in the Bundestag, outnumbered only by the German-American friendship group (Bartos 2006: 19). Leading officials' personal commitment to the Israeli issue is of particularly high importance, because a heightened media attention they receive makes it easier for them to attract public attention. This is well illustrated in a study by Rauer (2006) focusing on the effect of Brandt's 1970 kniefall. Rauer shows that the move had a stronger influence than the multiple societal initiatives of that period, since Brandt, as the chancellor, "was equipped with the maximum amount of social power available to a citizen of that nation" (ibid: 275). Because he did it spontaneously and because as an activist of an anti-Nazi movement, Brandt bore no personal responsibility for the Holocaust, many regarded his falling on his knees an extraordinary manifestation of an individual's desire to repent for his nation's crimes (ibid). Thanks to this, the kniefall has always been covered in the German media with a special focus on Brandt's emotions in front of the memorial, eventually becoming "a continuously renarrated and emphatically recollected symbol of atonement and the acknowledgement of guilt" (ibid: 274) in mass perception and embarking on a qualitatively new period in Germany's Vergangenheitsbewältigung with ordinary Germans increasingly accepting their nation's guilt (ibid: 257-258). 6.2. Where Controversies Appear: Public Opinion and Civil Society A number of authors depict Germany's special relationship with and historical responsibility toward Israel as narratives promoted and supported predominantly by the country's political elite. In this vein, one study analysing Germany's memory politics throughout the post-WWII period observes that [p]olitics have certainly not always represented the public sentiment or memory, and at times there has been a 'radical disjuncture in many respects between the abilities of the government and of the general public to 'come to terms' with the Nazi period' (Warburg 2010: 59). Scholars like Wittlinger (2018: 16-17) go even further, arguing that one can speak of the German-Israeli reconciliation solely from a "weak" perspective on this Distinction, calling her visits to Israel "always a refreshing historic experience" (Tablet 2014). "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 175 concept (i.e., the end of violence), while speaking of their reconciliation from a "thicker" perspective (i.e., forgiveness and trust) is possible only as far as Germany's political class is concerned. While the overall idea that the German elite is in general a stronger inspirer of the "moral responsibility" argument seems beyond question, certain nuances make it clear that the German society favours the idea of historical responsibility more than what one could think after reading statements of this sort. In the aftermath of the WWII, indeed, ordinary West Germans were rather cool on the idea of admitting German guilt, but this was because, first, they were mostly concerned with their immediate needs, food and work, which were not small issues in the post-war FRG and second, the aggressiveness of the Allies' social re-education program often caused people to avert their faces from the topic of crimes (Engert 2016: 34). In subsequent periods, however, public sentiment was gradually getting more positive about that idea. While in the early 1950s, only 11% of West Germans supported paying reparations to Israel (ibid: 37), in 1970, already 41% of them favoured Brandt's Kniefall (ibid: 40) and in 2005, as many as 72% of Germans considered it significant to commemorate Nazi crimes (ibid: 45). Hence, on the one hand, as Merkel once admitted, a full admission of their guilt took Germans 40 years (quoted in Bartos 2006: 30) and, as sceptics highlight, it happened when most of the Nazi regime's witnesses were already dead and memory about it was getting transformed from "communicative" into "cultural" (Wittlinger 2018: 10). On the other, the overall positive trend has allowed German governments to evolve their attitudes toward Nazi crimes correspondingly. As Warburg (2010: 59) puts it, [e]ach political generation has inherited and dealt with the collective memory of the Holocaust in a way tailored to the times. Adenauer's closed-door posture changed into Brandt's Ostpolitik, Schmidt's economic revitalization, Kohl's emphasis on European Pangaea, and progressed to the Schröder government's attempt at a "Kulturnation." Speaking of the current period, some authors contend that, as one study puts it, "the concerns of the present and the worries about the future have eroded the dominance of the past" (Langenbacher 2010: 63) and as a result, the issue of German guilt is going out of public sight. Admittedly, one of this tendency's roots is generational change which is viewed as a challenge by politicians and activists both "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 176 in Israel and Germany (for examples, see Gardner Feldman 2012: 157, 179-180, 183). On the one hand, research and opinion polls generally support such concerns. In 2015, solely 40% of Germans agreed with the idea of Germany's special responsibility vis-à-vis Jews (Hagemann and Nathanson 2015: 38) with 66% (79% among 18-30-year-olds) expressing anger that the Holocaust is still held against Germans (ibid: 24). Surveys also show that young Germans demonstrate shortage of knowledge about the Holocaust in spite of multiple governmental efforts to improve education about it (The Local 2017, Wittlinger 2018: 13-14). One 2006 social psychological study found that collective shame for Nazi crimes among German students was coupled with a substantial audience effect, that is, it was mainly manifest in their interactions with out-groups rather than in-groups (Dresler-Hawke and Liu 2006: 146). Yet again, a closer look at social trends shows a less negative picture. Firstly, compared with the results of previous social surveys, some of those of nowadays are slightly more favourable to Israel. Indeed, in 1991 and 2007, 60% and 58% respectively wanted to draw a line under the past (55% in 2015), while only 20 and 37% disagreed with that idea (42% in 2015) (Hagemann and Nathanson 2015: 23). This is coupled with a slight rise in public interest: from 2007 to 2013, the percentage of Germans reporting a strong or moderate interest in Israel grew from 62% to 69%, whereas the share of those with a weak or no interest declined from 38% to 30% (ibid: 29). Secondly-and more importantly, not denying the idea of moral accountability per se, most Germans (61%) believe their country holds it in relation to the world in general rather than solely Jews (ibid: 38). The rationale behind this notion is that the evil inflicted by Nazi crimes makes contemporary Germany responsible not for Israel or Jews specifically, but for the preservation of human rights in toto (Asseburg 2015: 3, see Krell 2015 for an elaborated version of this argument). This logic, hence, proves that a moral component in Germans' reasoning about Israel is rising rather than diminishing and nowadays they tend to employ it not only towards Israel as such, but also Israel's policies towards some of its neighbours (especially Palestine). In view of this, it is little wonder that while in 2013, 46% of Germans were of a good opinion about Israel as a country, only 19% liked its government (Hagemann and Nathanson 2015: 31, 33). It is also no "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 177 coincidence that criticism of Israel in Germany rises in times of military conflicts in which Israel sends its troops outside its borders. This was the case in the 1967 Six-Day War, the 1982 Israeli intervention in Lebanon (Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 14), Israel's suppression of the Second Intifada in early 2000s (Gardner Feldman 2012: 166) and the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War, when Germans were more critical of Israel than Brits and Americans (Belkin 2007: 8). Consistent with this argument is also the fact that in the 1990s, after the demise of the communist system in Central and Eastern Europe, German historians and societal actors started to widely use new available data to extend their focus from solely Jews towards a broader range of the Nazi regime's victims, particularly those residing in those countries (Langenbacher 2010: 48). All in all, one can agree with Khderi (2016: 140) that the public fatigue of the Holocaust in Germany today hardly implies its denial and/or a substantial rise of anti-Semitism.99 Rather, as Hagemann and Nathanson put it, Israelis and Germans seem "united by the past, divided by the present" (2015: coverpage). Remarkably, throughout the post-WWII period, society has frequently played the trigger role, inducing the German political class to take the issue of moral responsibility more seriously. In the 1950s-early 1960s, before the FRG and Israel established diplomatic relations, it was German students who organised German-Israeli study groups, maintaining ties with the Israeli civil society (Gardner Feldman 2012: 157). Moreover, as Art's detailed study shows (2005: 64-96), the FRG's turn towards the confession of its guilt started with a rise of left movements in the 1960s that consisted mainly of the youth. Those movements put forward a contrition frame to talk about Nazi crimes which became increasingly dominant among the elite, leading to its institutionalisation and the marginalisation of the previously dominant frame portraying Germans as Nazis' victims. The effect was so powerful that the latter left the political scene almost completely until the early 2000s, when it somewhat revitalised, but its impact on the German society has been rather minor ever since and is predicted to remain such (e.g. Langenbacher 2010: 99 This, however, is not to say that anti-Semitism is absent in contemporary Germany: in 2017, for instance, 9-10% of Germans reportedly had anti-Semitic feelings (CNN 2018) and the police registered the total of 1,453 crimes against Jews, 95% of which were committed by far-right groups (DW 2018). "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 178 50).100 Similarly, Weizsäcker's 1985 speech encouraging the nation to accept its guilt would have hardly been possible without NBC's Holocaust television series that were broadcast in the FRG in 1979, producing such a profound social effect that, as phrased by Engert (2016: 40), "[a]ll at once, the Holocaust became a nationwide topic and turned German society into an affected nation." Also, the initiative to construct a Holocaust memorial in the center of Berlin, which was eventually inaugurated in 2005, originally came from two German activists, neither of whom had a Jewish origin. Naturally, one can take a different perspective to look at all those social discussions, arguing that the very fact that there were hot debates on the meaning of Nazi crimes at this or that period was a sign of immaturity. Wittlinger (2018: 12), for instance, points to the 1986-1987 dispute of German historians in support of the argument that there was still no consensus about Germans' guilt in West Germany at that period. However, those who assume the result and not the process to be the main criterion of judgement might find Art's (2005: 76) description of that debate more compelling: Intellectual controversies rarely produce clear winners and losers. The German Historians' Debate, however, is an important exception to this rule. The majority of the German media . . . and the German historical establishment sided with Habermas's position. It is noteworthy that even though German society at large may exhibit some fatigue of the topic of the Holocaust, the country's civil society, contrariwise, seems active about it. There are currently eight NGOs in the country that directly deal with German-Israeli reconciliation and memory work by doing research, providing education programs, organising conferences, exchanges etc. Interestingly, four of them were created before and four after the German reunification (for details, see Gardner Feldman 2012: 138-143). In the 1990s, following the fall of the communist regime in the GDR, public interest to the history of oppressive regimes in Germany 100 This point may appear debatable given the recent rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany party which occasionally expresses anti-Semitic views and which came as third largest party in the Bundestag. Yet, among voters' main driving motives in favour of that party, researchers name immigration issue (mostly with regard to refugees), Euroscepticism and general disappointment in traditional parties, while anti-Semitism is not mentioned by any of them (Berning 2017, Goerres et. al. 2017, Neu & Pokorny 2017, Schwander & Manow 2017). On the other hand, the same papers predict that this party will establish a firm foothold in the country's party system, which may change the place of anti-Semitism in German politics for worse. "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 179 (including the Nazi one) rose again in large part thanks to various societal initiatives, such as films, photo exhibitions, historians' books etc (see Langenbacher 2010: 47 for details). Moreover, at that time, German business circles used to co-fund the payment of compensations to the overseas victims of Nazi crimes, while insurance companies agreed to honour the policies of the Nazi period (ibid: 44-47). In general, as Gardner Feldman (2012: 162) notes, non-economic considerations are often expressed by the leaders of big German enterprises, even though their main interests obviously lie in the trade sphere. Remarkably, German civil society's success in its memory initiatives is especially telling if contrasted with those of other countries. For instance, in neighbouring Austria, as distinct from the FRG, first, the 1960s youth movements hardly tried to contest the then dominant Austria-as-victim narrative and second, the contrition frame, which emerged in the 1980s, failed to achieve consensus among the political class. As a result, in contemporary Austria, far-right ideology enjoys much more legitimacy than in Germany (Art 2005: 120-143). 6.3. Limitations of Realpolitik Explanations Having shown the influence of the moral factor on the German elite's and society's approaches toward Israel, I proceed to demonstrating how it affects the characteristics of the German state's policies. Again, without denying the impact of pragmatic and, at times, coercive forces on them, I argue that any explanation depicting Germany's approach to Israel exclusively in terms of those forces would be insufficient. My first point is that even in the "least likely" cases, where their considerable influence on German leaders was beyond question, the moral factor still could hardly be totally disregarded as empty rhetoric. I will cite two examples of such cases. The first one is Adenauer's offer to reconcile with and pay a compensation to Israel. Engert (2016: 35) points to a certain element of international pressure in that decision, citing American officials' warning statement that the US would deem Bonn's treatment of the Jewish question as an "acid test." Wittlinger (2018: 10) attributes Adenauer's friendly moves toward Israel to economic considerations and power politics rather than morality, citing in support of this argument the unsuccessful attempt of two historians, Eugen Kogon and Walter Dirks, to convince "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 180 the FRG's government to improve ties with Jews in 1949. Both arguments, however, are far from unambiguous. First, Washington's desire to coerce Bonn regarding its relations with Israel at that time is open to question, since, as Schmidt (2016: 6) observes, the emerging Cold War diverted the US' focus even from West Germany's denazification,101 let alone its relations with Israel. Second, the fact that Adenauer was initially paying little, if any, attention to the problem of reconciliation with Israel appears to have sprung from the objective reality of that time that impelled the West German government to focus, in the first place, on rebuilding the country's economy and normalising relations with its closest neighbours. Incidentally, at that period, not only the FRG failed to concentrate on its moral responsibility for Israel, but also Israel was primarily dealing with its security and economic problems, remaining largely silent on compensation requests (Gardner Feldman 2012: 135, Alperovitch 2017: 69-70). As Israeli scholar Lior Alperovitch (2017: 67-69) shows, Adenauer initial offer to voluntarily pay DM 10 million to Israel in 1949, solely four years after the WWII, was surprising for the Israeli government that was not expecting such a proposal so soon and had no clear plan on how to react to it. Another criticism of Adenauer is that he pronouncedly treated the payment as a technical rather than a moral question (Engert 2016: 37) or, as Wittlinger (2018: 8) puts it, his offer "concentrated on the material rather than the moral dimension of German crimes." Yet, it is noteworthy that this behaviour may not have necessarily reflected his personal views, given that a public confession of the German guilt was impossible for Adenauer to sell even to parliamentarians from his party, let alone the public at large (Engert 2016: 37) With respect to the former, it is noteworthy that they seem to have been opposing paying to Israel not because of their denial of the crimes, but rather, their fear of the Arab world's reaction (Gardner Feldman 2012: 136). In fact, taking into account Adenauer's psychological characteristics (few, if any, 101 This is, however, not to say that the international factor played zero role in the FRG's attitude to Nazi crimes. Researchers commonly view the European integration as a factor which created an enabling environment that reinforced West Germany's Vergangenheitsbewältigung. This compares with Japan, where in the early 1950s, partly due to the absence of a similar factor, the Cold War and a communist threat, drew the focus away from the then ongoing liberalisation, cementing the conservative political class in its position (Schmidt 2016, see also Dresler-Hawke & Liu 2006: 148-149, Nijhuis 2016: 6-8). "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 181 studies do not portray him as a pragmatist) and his policies in other areas, the pragmatic concerns to re-build the image of post-Nazi Germany and contribute to its faster integration into the post-WWII world (the motives pointed out by Aruch 2013: 47, Gardner Feldman 2012: 135-136 etc) most likely have played a considerable role in his offer of compensations. Yet, it seems fair to agree with Belkin (2007: 2) that a moral commitment also was of (perhaps not a key but) a sizeable importance in it, given that "reparations to Israel were neither required by the international community not wholeheartedly endorsed by the German and Israeli people." Remarkably, Adenauer's decision was pioneering in the sense that it was the first case in history that a sovereign country made such a payment not as the formal condition of a peace treaty, but voluntarily, as a sort of moral responsibility (Engert 2016: 38). A number of leading US figures of that time confirmed that Adenauer's government was genuinely considering Germany's special responsibility for Israel to be real and even the then Israeli PM Ben Gurion himself admitted the Jewish issue was "of conscience and religion" for the West German Chancellor (Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 12). Notably, even in their talks with other countries, West German officials were highlighting their country's moral responsibility for Israel (ibid). The second example is Chancellor Erhand's 1965 decision to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, which Tel Aviv had been trying to achieve starting from 1955. According to Wittlinger (2018: 8), "it was German-German competition that played a crucial role in West Germany's decision under Chancellor Ludwig Erhard to offer the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel." However, historical studies show the opposite: in fact, confrontation between two Germanies was a factor that had hindered the FRG's government from taking that step until 1965 because of the fear that this could have made West Germany lose its influence in the Arab world and induced Arab states to recognise the GDR (Gardner Feldman 2012: 138-139, Stauber 2003: 111-114). Moreover, prior to 1965, Bonn increased its economic aid to Israel as a compensation for the refusal of establishing diplomatic relations (ibid) with Adenauer in 1960 saying the recognition of Israel was a matter of time and not of principle (Stauber 2003: 113-114). Furthermore, the effectiveness of Tel Aviv's pressure on Bonn rose precisely when Israeli officials "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 182 changed their main argument from a pragmatic to a moral one, that is, from trying to convince the FRG that Arab leaders could not be trusted because they were already supportive of the Soviet bloc to arguing that the possible recognition of Israel would clearly signalize to the world that West Germany had broken with its Nazi past (ibid: 111-114). This was coupled with growing domestic costs, that is, the above-mentioned rising social movement trying to urge the West German government to fully reconcile with Israel, which in the early 1960s included also influential parliamentarians representing both leading political parties in the Bundestag (Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 13). It is against this background that the Erhard government decided to neglect pragmatic considerations and solve the issue of Israel's recognition "for its own sake," i.e., on moral grounds (Gardner Feldman 2012: 138-139). Incidentally, Israel was not the sole country the relationship of West Germany with which was affected by the changing domestic normative setting, that is, the growing desire to pay off the damage incurred by the Nazi regime. As Cordell and Wolff (2007) show, starting from the late 1960s, this factor largely impacted on the FRG's policies toward Poland and Czechoslovakia, later ensuring their long-term stability under evolving international conditions and Bonn's short-term interests. My second observation to be pointed out is the persistence of the German state's commitment to the special relationship with Israel despite tangible inequalities that are working to Tel Aviv's advantage and remarkably, it is exactly the Holocaust factor and not material interests which drives the German-Israeli relations in a direction favourable to Israel (Khderi 2016: 142). Indeed, the Berlin-Tel Aviv relationship is currently grounded upon the admission of the Holocaust's uniqueness, its profound integration in Germans' contemporary identity and the idea that "the friendship between the two states is largely due to Israel's generosity and reconciliatory stance towards Germany after 1945 in spite of the crimes committed against Jews in the previous period" (Wittlinger 2018: 10). As a study by Oppermann and Hansel (2016: 20-22) demonstrates, the German elite's general acceptance of the idea that their country's guilt can never be reinstituted is detrimental to Berlin's bargaining hand in its negotiations with Tel Aviv which could be substantially higher if it corresponded to the regular logic of two-level games and "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 183 Germany's objective material resources. In the German elite's conception, to quote the authors, "Germany's ontological security is indissolubly tied to the special relationship with Israel" (ibid: 22).102 All these seem to reflect an ongoing social trend that "the Holocaust and the Nazi regime are increasingly becoming divorced from their specific historical and cultural context" (Langenbacher 2010: 62), which has an unfavourable effect for Germany in its relations with Israel. Remarkable is that in 2015, even the majority of Israelis believed their country benefited from the special relationship more than Germany (Wittlinger 2018: 16). The inequalities in Israeli-German relations can be observed along various lines. First of all, for decades, Germany has been backing up Israel's official viewpoint in international fora, such as the UN General Assembly and especially the EEC/EU, to which Merkel once referred as assisting Israel to "make its interests heard in the EU" (quoted in Bartos 2006: 30). In different periods, the FRG managed not to allow the EEC/EU to mention the PLO in the declaration advocating Palestine's self-determination (Belkin 2007: 3), condemn Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip (ibid: 9), introduce economic sanctions on Israel (Bartos 2006: 30) etc. All in all, often absolutely alone and sometimes supported by one-two other members, Germany has not been able to turn the EEC/EU's critical general stance in the opposite direction, mostly succeeding in mitigating the language of documents criticising Israel and at times blocking single EU initiatives (Gardner Feldman 2012: 181). Even since 2010, as Merkel gradually adopted a critical standpoint on Israel's policies in Palestine, generally ceasing to represent Tel Aviv's interests in the EU any longer (Asseburg 2015: 6), Berlin has not gone too far in its criticism. First, Germany has methodically opposed the propositions to exert pressure/coercion on Tel Aviv and/or recognise Palestine unilaterally, believing this would be effective only if Israel recognised the Palestinian state too (ibid: 5-6). Second, Berlin has usually framed its criticism from the viewpoint of Israeli needs, maintaining that the cessation of the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the conflict's true two-state solution would best benefit Tel Aviv's own security interests 102 Israel is, however, not the only case of the FRG's "moral entrapment." In the 1990-2000s, the German elite gradually accepted the idea of their country's debt to the US, remembering Washington's support during the WWII, the Cold War and the German reunification-though the notion of such a debt had a mixed reception in German society (Wittlinger 2006: 492). "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 184 (ibid: 5). Moreover, since the late 1950s, the FRG's government has been supporting Israel militarily, sometimes resorting to measures nearly violating the German national legislation, let alone risking its reputation in the EU and at home. In the beginning of the 1960s as well as in 1991, there were big scandals around the exposures of the secret supplies of German weaponry to Israel, which not only were injurious to the image of the then current governments of the FRG, but also, in the former case, eventually resulted in the recognition of the GDR by most Arab states (Saynakova 2010: 85, Serr 2015: 220).103 Not less risky was the BND's broad practice of giving the passports of German citizens not travelling outside Europe to the Mossad's agents who arguably used them in a number of sabotage operations in Iran (Bartos 2006: 40) as well as for assassinating Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in 2010 (DW 2010), which raised criticism of the German government at home. At that period, analysts also noted the fact of Berlin's extensive anti-terrorism cooperation with Tel Aviv despite the limitations the German national legislation places on such policies (Belkin 2007: 6). This notwithstanding, Israel's approach towards Germany generally turns out to be rather cool and exploitive. Back in the 1950s, Adenauer's regret speech and offer of compensation engendered a long discussion in the Knesset on whether Germany's "bloody money" should be accepted 104 (Engert 2016: 30) and an emotional reaction of Israel's Jews that were largely requiring Germany's excommunication, employing Biblical metaphors in support of that idea (Alperovitch 2017: 70-73). Having signed the reparations agreement, Israel explicitly made it clear that no reconciliation was possible between the two countries (saying that only the Holocaust's killed victims would be able to forgive Germany) and hence, Tel Aviv was offering nothing to Bonn in exchange for the payment (Gardner Feldman 2012: 135, Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 20). Even Israeli 103 In fairness to the Israeli government, sometimes it also risked its domestic reputation by engaging in a covert military cooperation with the FRG. For instance, Israel's secret supplies of ammunition to West Germany in the 1950s translated into a big domestic scandal when they were uncovered in 1959 (Serr 2015: 215). 104 Notably, though Israel justified its 1951 request for compensation in moral terms, in fact, it remains open to question whether Tel Aviv was not primarily guided by the pragmatic need to develop its the then poor economy (e.g. Gardner Feldman 2012: 136). "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 185 passports remained invalid for Germany until 1956 (Engert 2016: 38). Suspicion against Germany continued in subsequent decades. Even Brandt's kniefall received a rather cool reaction in the Israeli society for it was perceived there as aimed toward Poland rather than Israel (Engert 2016: 31). While Bonn continuously took Tel Aviv's side on the issues most vital to Israel, Tel Aviv, on its part, demonstrated scepticism regarding Bonn's biggest dream, the German reunification, fearing this could turn Germany into an aggressive state again-albeit those apprehensions have turned out wrong (Wittlinger 2018: 8). In the recent years which are characterized by Israeli society's overall positive opinion of Germany and its leaders,105 there has been a strong opposition among Israeli Jews to a number of Israeli-German joint events and German leaders' speeches to the Knesset (Gardner Feldman 2012: 148). Remarkably, Israel's view of Germany-at both elite and societal levels-is still highly influenced by the historical remembrance of the Holocaust. As far as society is concerned, let it suffice to mention that in 1991-2013, from 73 to 78% of Israelis were directly reporting this (Hagemann & Nathanson 2015: 30). According to one psychological study comparing Poles and Israelis in this regard, war memories are less pertinent to Poles' perception of Germany than that of Israelis, because Israelis, compared with Poles, have had less contacts with Germans in the post-WWII period (Imhoff et. al. 2017). As for the Israeli government, to take advantage of the above-mentioned "moral entrapment" of the German elite, it "plays the Holocaust card" by continuously reminding Germany of its historical responsibility toward Israel-sometimes in a reproachful tone, particularly when Berlin adopts a balancing instead of a strictly pro-Israeli position on matters related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (for examples, see Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 19). Notably, it is precisely Berlin's moral entrapment that seemingly enables Tel Aviv to show inflexibility and somewhat rudeness toward German officials, knowing that a tough reaction is not likely to come from them. To exemplify, in 2012, Netanyahu declined to halt the building of new Jewish settlements and allow finishing the construction of a Germany-financed sewage treatment plant in the Gaza Strip, even 105 68% and 63% of Israelis hold a positive view of Germany and its government respectively (Hagemann & Nathanson 2015: 33, 31). "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 186 though these were what Merkel had requested to be able to convince the Bundestag to let two German submarines be sold to Israel106 (Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 22). In April 2017, Netanyahu made a last-minute cancellation of his planned talks with German FM Sigmar Gabriel over his disagreement with Gabriel's meeting with the representatives of an Israeli NGO critical of the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank (Fisher 2017). In January 2018, while Gabriel was saying that both Germany and Israel want a two-state solution, Netanyahu publicly interrupted him by stating that Israel's main condition is to retain the military control of the West Bank anyway. Expressing his disappointment in Netanyahu's behaviour later at another conference, Gabriel said: [I]n Germany, and frankly inside my own party, young people, the young generation, feel increasingly less inclined to accept what they deem unfair treatment of the Palestinians . . . It's increasingly difficult for people like me to explain to them the reasons why our support for Israel must persist (Daily Mail 2018). For all that, on balance, Israel's need of economic and military collaboration with the FRG generally appears to exceed vice versa, a fact casting doubt on Asseburg's (2015: 1) statement that Germany's approach toward Israel has always rested primarily on economic and security interests. Naturally, the FRG gains certain benefits from its friendship with Israel: at the current stage, Berlin takes interest in Israeli high-tech weapons (in particular, drones) and experience in counter-terrorism practices (Asseburg 2015: 2, Serr 2015: 222-223), while in the Cold war period, Bonn viewed Israel as an important source of ammunition and information about Soviet weapons which Israel used to get from its Arab neighbours, not to mention that a close cooperation with the Mossad was giving the BND more independence from the CIA (Gardner Feldman 2012: 180; Serr 2015: 215-219). Yet, all in all, for Israel, its military collaboration with Germany seems more essential. Experts argue that German weapons were of crucial significance for the Israeli army's successes in the 1967, 1973 and 1982 wars (Belkin 2007: 5). In the Cold War period, Israeli officials themselves admitted the exceptionally good quality of German weapons in comparison with other ones (quoted in Serr 2015: 106 Incidentally, in the end, the German government still managed to pass the submarines deal through the Bundestag, but, of course, with more difficulty. "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 187 216). In the 1990-2000s, collaboration with German weaponry companies paved the way for the Israeli military industry to the EU market (see ibid: 220 for details). Economically, the FRG has been the first, second, third or fourth largest exporter to Israel at different periods, always remaining its largest trade partner in Europe (Busch 2013: 6-7, State of Israel 2018), whereas Israel's importance for Germany has never been anything comparable, given the smallness of its market (Belkin 2007: 4). This is in accord with the statistical data showing that Israeli investments into the German economy are stably greater than vice versa (CBS 2018). My third argument is that the FRG's commitment to moral responsibility is manifest across a wide range of its policies and not only its foreign policy initiatives directly involving the State of Israel. Firstly, and most tellingly, the German government has fulfilled numerous initiatives to pay off its guilt for the Holocaust, among which are the payment of the total of €66 billion in material compensations for Nazi crimes against Jews; the erection of a memorial and an education center commemorating the Holocaust in close vicinity of (about 500 meters from) the Bundestag, the granting of the permission to immigrate to Germany, use its welfare system and receive material benefits to Jews from post-Soviet states, the provision of substantial financial support to the German Jewish community to help integrate newcoming Jews, the arrangement of the round-the-clock police protection of synagogues and Jewish institutions etc (for details, see Bartos 2006, Gardner Feldman 2012). Secondly, the German government has been active at marginalising and trying to restrict the activities of the right-wing movements that deny the Holocaust and Israel's right to exist (for examples, see Bartos 2006: 14-19). Regarding this, one can also note an important role of German courts which although not always supported the government's initiatives (for instance, concerning the numerous attempts to outlaw the far-right NPD party), however, in many cases ruled in their favour even without being legally obliged to do so. Exemplary of this are, for instance, 1) the 1994 ruling of the Constitutional Court excluding Holocaust denial from protection by the law guaranteeing freedom of expression and 2) the 2005 decision to expel a Hizbollah member from Germany because of that organisation's fight against Israel despite its not being included in the EU's terrorist list (ibid: 16-17). Thirdly, Berlin's policies focusing on the "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 188 remembrance of the Holocaust coincide with its efforts to "come to terms" with the GDR's communist regime with multiple memory work initiatives (films, books, historians' works and NGO's activities etc) initiated and financed by the German government in the 1990-2000s (for details, see Langenbacher 2010: 54-57). Furthermore, committed to the two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Berlin is one of the strongest supporters of Palestine among EU members-even though in the view of over a half of Germans, their government mostly supports Tel Aviv in the conflict (Hagemann & Nathanson 2015: 42). After Israel recognised the PLO in 1993, Germany was the first EU country to establish a mission in Palestine (Belkin 2007: 8) and later, in 2010, Germany created a coordination council with Palestine, an organ nothing similar to which any other EU country has with Palestine (Khannanova 2017: 19). Moreover, the FRG is one of the largest donors of Palestine: in 2017, it ranked third in the list of contributors to the UNRWA, outdone only by the US and the EU (UNRWA 2017). Perhaps more remarkably, German aid to Palestine is not limited to humanitarian projects, but is also present in the security sphere: since 2010, Germany has been implementing a program aimed to reinforce the Palestinian police (GIZ 2018). Due to such foreign policy, Germany has managed to gain the trust of both Israel and Palestine, which enabled Berlin to serve as a mediator between them several times (Belkin 2007: 9-10), dissuade the PLO's leader Yasser Arafat from declaring independence in 1999 (Khannanova 2017: 17), initiate in 2002 the resumption of the peace process that eventually resulted in the implementation of a roadmap for the conflict's two-state solution (Belkin 2007: 9) etc. Although some of the German peace initiatives failed to get support from the conflicting parties-to illustrate, the proposition to involve Syria in Israeli-Palestinian talks in the mid-2000s encountered opposition from Washington and Tel Aviv (ibid: 12)-Berlin has proven to be ultimately more useful for Palestine than some overtly pro-Palestinian EU members and more useful for Israel than it would have been if it blindly supported Tel Aviv one-sidedly. Gardner Feldman (2012: 167) conceives of this support of both sides of the conflict as a Janus-like policy, however, an alternative-and consistent with the above-cited observations-interpretation of this could be that the German elite simply feels a moral obligation toward both "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 189 Israel and Palestine. Finally, in recent decades, Berlin has often linked its special responsibility for human rights protection to its foreign policy initiatives unrelated to Jews, Israel or Palestine. Examples on this point comprise the EMU's creation, the EU's Eastward expansion, the call to need to stop Belgrade's aggression in Kosovo in 1999 etc (Langenbacher 2010: 46, Warburg 2010: 58). Moreover, in the post-WWII period, the FRG's approach toward participation in military operations has always been defined by Nazi crimes, albeit its content has considerably changed from the complete resistance to take part in any of them to an active engagement in peacekeeping (Warburg 2010: 62-63) or, as formulated by Warburg (ibid: 67), it has undergone "a shift away from the chronic apology for German crimes toward a responsibility for their world prevention." Some researchers (e.g. Wittlinger 2006: 491-492, Langenbacher 2010: 46-47) interpret the shift in terms of the mitigation of the Germany-as-perpetrator with the Germany-as-victim frame and the attendant gradual substitution of the "never again war" for the "never again Auschwitz" approach. The latter is coincidentally the approach that Israel employs vis-à-vis its neighbours. Discussion This chapter's analysis has shown that in the post-WWII period and especially in its recent decades, the FRG's stance vis-à-vis Israel has to a large extent been the product of the sense of moral responsibility, which has manifested itself in the country's civic society and especially its political class. This, however, is not to say that Germany has had zero pragmatic interests to cooperate with Israel, for this would have probably lessened the success of their reconciliation, a process which, according to Gardner Feldman (2012: 14), "is always a coupling of morality and pragmatism." Rather, this chapter has demonstrated that the importance of the moral factor in Germany's approach to Israel can hardly be reduced to being what Wittlinger (2018: 8) calls the "basic narrative" used to camouflage realpolitik. Whilst both moral and pragmatic forces have influenced the FRG's Israel policies in multiple single cases (for examples, see Gardner Feldman 2012: 133, 136, 137-138, 168, 182; Khannanova 2017: 15; Oppermann & Hansel 2016: 12), it is the former "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 190 that seem to have been giving them an impetus over longer periods, determining their continuity and high level despite changing international conditions. Relevant to mention here is Gardner Feldman's (2012: 162) statement that "[m]orality has sustained German support for Israel when political crises may have suggested distance to protect economic interests" coupled with her remark that by comparison to Germany's more pragmatic reconciliation with France, that with Israel has been characterised by a higher significance of moral forces (1999: 346). This is also consistent with the observation of Khannanova (2017: 15) that historical responsibility, along with a so-called "Atlantic solidarity," are the determinants of German policy towards Israel, while economic interests, demographic factor and a commitment to the EU common foreign and security policy are its variables. This configuration of motives determines the characteristics of Israeli's power with respect to Germany which by and large falls under the category of social attraction. As for the scope of this power, it embraces a whole range of fields, from foreign to cultural policy, but is especially pronounced in security, the area where the sense of moral responsibility for the existence of the Jewish state drives Berlin to consider Tel Aviv's demands most legitimate. It is the area where Germany is especially prone to go against the international community and domestic public opinion for the sake of helping Israel. Moreover, it is the area where the positions of Germany and its EU fellows on Israel often are particularly divergent. Telling here is that despite occasionally criticising Israel, the FRG has nearly always supported Israel when it was in particular need of international support, for instance, during military conflicts in the Middle East (e.g. Khannanova 2017: 16) and situations of crises in general (for an overview, see Gardner Feldman 2012: 148). Furthermore, Berlin has invariably sided with Tel Aviv on issues supposedly posing an existential threat to Israel: even since 2010, when Merkel's criticism of the Netanyahu government's policies in Palestine has risen, she has usually been firmly supporting Tel Aviv on Hamas and Iran, admitting Israel's right to self-defence against them and insisting they recognise Israel's right to exist and stop aggressive anti-Israeli rhetoric and policies (for examples, see Bartos 2006: 35, Gardner Feldman 2012: "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 191 175, 177, Reuters 2014, Daily Mail 2016).107 In general, scholars commonly regard German-Israeli cooperation in the security (both military and intelligence) area as one of those constituting priority (e.g. Gardner Feldman 2012: 170, Asseburg 2015: 2, Serr 2015: 223). Among recent examples of this, perhaps the most notable one is six dolphin-class submarines which Berlin has supplied to Tel Aviv since the early 1990s (in 2017, Germany agreed to supply three more ones), subsidising the construction of most of them. Analysts largely note that for Israel, the German government's favourable attitude to arms cooperation is ultimately much more significant than its verbal criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinians (e.g. Streletz 2014: 316). This observation is pertinent not only to the current period: in the late 1950s, when West Germany compensated its reluctance to establish diplomatic ties with secret arms supplies, Israeli officials were overtly stating they needed the latter far more (Saynakova 2010: 83). The relative stability of Germany's sense of moral commitment has also ensured the long durability of Israel's power vis-à-vis the German governments, all of which agreed with the idea of their country's historical responsibility for Israel regardless of differences in their political affiliations as well as changes in the international system, both states' economic needs and public opinion about Israel inside and outside the FRG. This also explains Germany's continuous acceptance of the idea of the special relationship in spite of its numerous inequalities beneficial for Israel. It seems substantially to be due to the moral factor that, as Gardner Feldman (2012: 183) puts it, "[f]orces pushing Germany and Israel together were always greater than those that divided them," inducing German leaders to act towards Israel "decisively with long-term perspectives" even despite apparent immediate controversies around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even though Germany, as the most successful case of apology in IR (Engert 2016: 30), has a high degree of guilt toward Israel, sometimes acting in Israel's 107 The opposite observation, that is, that as threats to the Israeli security decrease, the FRG's criticism of Tel Aviv tends to grow, is also correct. To illustrate, speaking of Bonn's approach to Israel in the 1970-1980s, Oppermann and Hansel (2016: 14) note that "[s]ince Israel's survival appeared much less threatened than in the 1950s when it was internationally isolated and surrounded by stronger Arab nations, Germany felt able to take more critical positions toward Israeli policies without risking the security of the Jewish state and without violating core elements of its own national identity." "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 192 favour even despite a competing self-interest, the weight of Tel Aviv's power vis-à-vis Bonn/Berlin still tends to be limited-sometimes significantly-in the presence of other factors which the German government frequently perceives as situationally more significant than the sense of historical responsibility toward Israel. In some cases, such conflicting considerations have a value-based character, coming from the sense of moral responsibility for human rights. For example, in 2002 and 2005, apprehending their possible usage against Palestinians, Germany refused to provide Israel with armoured personnel carriers, while simultaneously seeing no problem with supplying Israel with arms of a defensive character, such as anti-missile systems and submarines (Gardner Feldman 2012: 171-172, 174). In other cases, they have a pragmatic nature, such as showing unity with Germany's EU fellows (e.g. it is arguably in part on these grounds that Merkel eventually turned into being more critical of Netanyahu's Palestine policies, see Khannanova 2017: 18), keeping (friendly) relations with the Arab world and/or Iran, acting according to the FRG's economic needs etc. Interestingly, in some cases, when the perceived strengths of the sense of moral responsibility and a competing self-interest were nearly equal, Bonn/Berlin provided compensations to Tel Aviv. To illustrate, before 1965, the FRG increased material aid and weapons supplies to balance its refusal to recognise Israel (Gardner Feldman 2012: 137-138). Likewise, after the 1991 Gulf War, Berlin provided Tel Aviv with more arms after it was discovered Germany had supplied Iraq with offensive weapons (ibid: 172). Concerning the weight of Israel's power with regard to Germany, two things may seem puzzling if contrasted with the description of social attraction given in section 3.3.5. First, Berlin's occasional readiness to incur (sometimes substantial) domestic and other costs to aid Tel Aviv appears contradictory to the fact that the strength of values as determinants of behaviour is often limited in the presence of a competing self-interest. Second, in general, social attraction operates in relative rather than absolute terms:108 poor actor B may capitalise on the desire of A to help 108 This feature makes social attraction similar to rational one: as was pointed out in Chapter 5, the EU's attractiveness for Kazakhstan hinges on the strength of the bloc's achievements in general as well as in comparison with other powers (in the first place, Kazakhstan's neighbours, Russia and China) and in fact, Astana may turn toward them should it once perceive them as better able to suit its needs. "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 193 the poorest only until the emergence of a poorer actor, who A would regard as more in need.109 Yet, surprisingly, in the Germany-Israel case, attraction has been firmly manifested in behaviour for decades even against the backdrop of Israel's occupation of Palestine which, in theory, should have put Palestine in the position of a more considerable victim than Israel. What seems to be at play here is the uniqueness of the Holocaust in European history, making that catastrophe an epitome of the strongest possible violence in the popular mindset and putting Israel's forgiveness for it at the core of the German elite's ontological security. Even nowadays, when conditions not only at the EU and domestic, but also Israeli110 and international111 levels disfavour the continuation of the special relationship with Israel, Berlin has undertaken only a limited criticism of Tel Aviv. Hence, for the goals of this thesis, this seems to represent a rare situation when a most likely case (that is, one where independent variables are strongly pronounced) is not most illustrative of all the patterns of actors' usual behaviour. At first glance, these characteristics of social attraction may seem confusable with those of emotional and rational attractions. Indeed, similarly to Kazakhstan's desire to cooperate with the EU mainly in the areas where it gets instrumental benefits, Germany's aspiration to collaborate with Israel is also most conspicuous when/where a situation around Israel activates Germany's sense of moral responsibility. Yet, a crucial difference between them is that when translated into B's conduct, values (the base of social attraction) operate towards A's behaviour in general, while pragmatic cost-benefit calculation (the logic behind rational attraction) gets activated only by A's conduct toward B. It is no coincidence that while decreases in Brussels' attraction for Astana (and hence, in the EU's power vis-à-vis Kazakhstan) are mostly resultant from the bloc's behaviour vis-à-vis the Nazarbayev regime (criticism for human rights violations etc), analogous declines in Tel Aviv's attraction for Berlin are primarily caused by Israel's treatment of other actors, in the first 109 This is what commonly happens in the EU after each new enlargement. For example, as a country with a relatively low level of development, Ireland benefited from EU funds until 2004, when the accession of ten new members rendered that country out of the group of states eligible for the subsidies. 110 The conservatism of the Netanyahu cabinet which The Guardian named "most hard-right" in the country's history (Beaumont 2016). 111 Berlin hardly wants to act in solidarity with the Trump administration, both for its overall negative reputation and its particular friendliness with the Netanyahu government. "Social" Attraction: Germany-Israel 194 place, Palestine. For the same reason, unlike Kazakhstan, Germany shows a certain readiness to tolerate inequalities in its relations with Israel and behave against its self-interest to support that country, a quality that apparently places the FRG's behaviour on a par with that of Serbia toward Russia. However, while Berlin tends to turn its back on Tel Aviv when a perceived gap between what is prescribed by its self-interest and values becomes too wide, the strong affective power of Serbia's attachment to Russia makes Belgrade keep and deepen its friendship with Moscow despite that it contradicts Serbia's main declared goal, namely accession to the EU. Finally, while both Serbia's attraction to Russia and Germany's one to Israel are durable thanks to identity-based forces (values and emotions respectively) producing them, the latter seems less stable in the long run, for values as a power base presuppose a higher dependence on B's current behaviour than do emotions. Therefore, generational change is commonly seen as detrimental to Israel's attractiveness for Germany, whilst this is not observed in the Serbia-Russia case.112 112 Opinion polls results underpin this statement: while young Germans report a more negative opinion of Israel compared with Germans on average (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2015), Serbian youth holds somewhat more pro-Russian views than overall population (Oliphant 2016). Concluding Remarks 195 Concluding Remarks "First, there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is." ― Traditional Buddhist saying, via Donovan, "There is a Mountain," 1967. "It is really true what philosophy tells us, that life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second precondition, that it must be lived forwards." ― Søren Kierkegaard, Journalen JJ: 167, 1843. Research Implications Theoretical and Methodological Implications Now that the case studies are performed, it is time to examine the implications of the whole thesis. In this section, I try not to repeat the particulars summarised in the Discussions sections of Chapters 2 and 3, but, rather, take a more distant look at the contributions of my study to IR theory. Foremost, my research firmly grounds attraction in a soft power relationship, establishing that from the viewpoint of the subject, attraction―which has, in turn, three distinct bases―is the mechanism via which soft power operates. This is not to eliminate the validity of Nye's argument that soft power works also via agenda-setting and persuasion from the agent's perspective.113 However, from a methodological viewpoint, my thesis demonstrates the possibility to operationalise soft power as attraction if a research question concentrates on the attributes of one actor's attractiveness for another one rather than the content and/or effectiveness of an actor's image-enhancing strategy. In doing so, my research somewhat goes 113 Although my subject-centered perspective did not make it possible to make a special focus on the agent's policies, I still touched upon them in passing, for instance, when speaking about Israel's policies aimed to exploit the German elite's sense of moral commitment and Russia's endeavours to take advantage of Serbia's emotional attachment by resorting to agenda-setting and persuasion. What seems, however, to make these policies' success possible is the existence of a prior asset (values, emotional attachment and pragmatic perception of competence) inherent in the subject's motivation, an observation consistent with the arguments found in the constructivist accounts of soft power (see section 2.4). On the other hand, neither my theoretical model nor case studies rule out the possibility that A may get B to voluntarily do what A wants with no resort to hard power and without any pre-existing elements in B's psychology that ensure A's attraction. This question remains for future case study researchers and requires a more dynamic, historical approach to case studies which will make it possible to analyse the origination of those elements. Concluding Remarks 196 against a common intuition about soft power analysis, adding to the scarce, but growing similar literature (e.g. Rohrbacher & Jeníčková 2011, Rostoks 2015, Patalakh 2017). Additionally, my study shows that even those researching A's intentional soft power strategy should factor in the driving motives of B's policy toward A, for they determine the character of B's perception of A and, in turn, A's power vis-à-vis B. This point moves forward the arguments of a number of theoretical (for numerous examples, see a literature review in Chapter 2) and methodological (e.g. Patalakh 2016) papers which from various angles encourage soft power researchers to take a closer look at B. On top of this, my study demonstrates that to account for all the aspects of attraction to the fullest possible extent, one cannot disregard A's unintentional power: especially the Germany-Israel case study on social attraction114 illustrates A's ability to get a sizeable asset of power with respect to B solely by virtue of being the victim of B's actions (a so-called "legitimacy of equity") without undertaking any deliberate actions. Importantly, I approached soft power from a psychological point of view, elaborating, to the extent that it was possible, on a framework containing the defining and empirical characteristics of the foundations of attraction. In general, the need of the integration of social psychological accounts with respect to a variety of IR subfields has been acknowledged by multiple scholars (e.g. Larson 1988, Rathbun 2009, Kelman 2012) and, in recent years, it has been a growing trend among constructivist scholars to apply social psychological accounts to IR issues (Larson 1988, Rathbun 2009, Sasley 2011 etc). Falling into this trend, my study confirms the possibility and usefulness of such application, its ability to provide us with new insights into the problematic issues of our field. Furthermore, my framework considers attraction and the soft/hard power dichotomy from a rather rigorous perspective with an eye to enhance the academic utility of the "soft power" concept, the usefulness of which for policy description is 114 Indeed, whereas Serbia's identification with Russia to a large degree stems from the Russian empire's policy toward Turkey in the 18-19th centuries and Kazakhstan's perception of EU maturity and competence originates to a considerable extent in the success of European countries' economic and technological policies in recent decades, Germany's special treatment of Israel is rooted only in the crimes committed by Germans themselves. Concluding Remarks 197 already widely acknowledged. Sceptics may find my approach to oversimplify the complicated nature of social power, arguing that power is actually a unitary phenomenon and its "hardness" and "softness" should be realistically positioned on one continuum (similarly to the one made by Nye, see Figure 5) rather than treated as two separate categories. Yet, my approach explicitly presupposes that each power base is characterised by weight that is largely case-dependent and with regard to which little can be generalised. At the same time, compared to Nye's continuum, my framework allows to better ascertain differences between the two kinds of power and their variations, showing that the fact that power is indeed a matter of degree is not to say that attraction rests on coercion. Another implication of this thesis is a literature review including the majority of conceptual works on soft power (Chapter 2), both those that are often-cited and those which tend to be largely neglected. Even though reviewing relevant studies is a standard procedure in any research, it was rather complicated in this particular case, given that those researching soft power tend to pull the debate in different directions, explain similar things from diverse perspectives and employ different terminologies. Therefore, to make sense of the debate, present it as coherent and find common denominators around which to cluster the studies, I often had to discern implicit ideas they contain, resorting to what is sometimes called "careful reading." Finally, my study allows to better assimilate the hard/soft power dichotomy into a wider academic debate on social power, the necessity of which, as was argued in Chapter 2, has been acknowledged by David Baldwin. Indeed, whilst most empirical applications of the "soft power" concept treat it as a byword synonymous with public diplomacy, culture or non-violent policies, my research is one of the few that use it as a social science concept, employing it in IR field with regard to relations between two actors. Empirical Implications Besides moving forward the IR debate on power, my study has also made some contribution to our understanding of the empirical cases it investigated. First, it has made the case for the crucial role identityand affect-laden motivations play in Concluding Remarks 198 Serbia's policy toward Russia. Albeit I am by far not the first to have identified this link as such, to date, my research appears to be the most considerable attempt to present this argument systematically. This helps underpin the popular common-sense notion that the Serbian government and society want to enter the EU predominantly for pragmatic purposes, while emotionally, feeling more closely bonded to Russia. As for the implication of my case study on Kazakhstan's approach toward the EU, though there are other papers making a case for the key role of pragmatic forces in it, my study seems to offer the most substantial endeavour to integrate the existent literature into a coherent account as well as offer elements of its critical review. Like in the case study on Serbia, I did not only rely on international sources, but also tried to bring together papers published by Russian, Kazakh and Serbian scholars in local journals. Another aspect of the study's originality is its substantial focus not on the content of Astana's policies toward Brussels, but, rather, on motives behind them. Additionally, unlike most other research on this topic, mine placed Kazakhstan-EU relations into a broader international context, later allowing me to reflect on the meaning and peculiarities of instrumentality and pragmatism in Astana's foreign policy. Similarly, the case study on Germany's policy vis-à-vis Israel has attempted to critically review and systematically present literature on its underlying motives. Although the literature review performed here is less comprehensive than that in the Kazakhstan-EU case, my study supplemented and in part moved forward the argument of papers making the case for the significant role of the moral factor. Policy Implications Though my power analysis does not presuppose intentionality and agent-centered perspective and hence, as such is not policy-oriented, its contributions still seem to go beyond the academic field. First, of some use for policy analysts and practitioners may be the speculations about the future development of Serbian, Kazakhstani and German foreign policies that I made in the Discussions sections of respective chapters. Yet, the main policy implication of the study is that it specifies and further develops the argument (made by Nye and commonly repeated by other pundits) Concluding Remarks 199 that the success of the soft power strategy of one IR actor (A) toward another one (B) is to a great degree contingent on―if not determined by―the actual configuration of B's motives. Hence, what matters is not only whether, but also how B likes A, for this defines the type―to reiterate, not the strength, but the type―of the power asset A has over B. All in all, it also determines how A should affect B to increase the odds that the influence attempt will succeed. Some may find this argument trivial, but it seems that policymakers tend to neglect it. It is hardly coincidental that NGO researchers keep advising Brussels to take account of the specificities of its leverage over different Central Asian states in order to customise its democracy/human rights promotion strategies for each particular state (see Chapter 5). Limitations As for the limitations of my study, they mainly stem from theory and methodology. Regarding theory-related ones, at the most general level, critics of the constructivist approach may find its overall interpretation of power as too broad and all-inclusive, questioning the exclusion of A's intentionality and the incorporation of B's identity. My thesis' analytical framework also contains a number of problems. The first of them is asymmetries in the empirical manifestations of the three types of attraction: "emotional" attraction, for instance, contains a far greater number of empirically observable qualities than does "rational" attraction. The second one is that soft power's weight―due to the obvious impossibility to generalise it―exogenous to the model, which might make it the same sort of "emergency exit" for case study researchers as is A's skill in the neoliberal agent-centered model.115 On top of this, both these problems make it hard to perform a rigorous cross comparison of the cases, which partly explains why a comparative chapter as such is absent in my thesis, though certain comparisons are made in the Discussions sections of Chapters 4-6. 115 This, however, seems to be a common issue in typological frameworks, of which mine is a case. Bennett, for example, argues they make relatively lenient suppositions about case comparisons, noting that "[t]he minimal assumptions of typological theory are in fact similar to those of the statistical researchers who interpret the 'error term' in their equations as including measurement error or left-out variables" (2004: 33). Concluding Remarks 200 Concerning methodology-related limitations, one reflects a general weakness of the case study method, that is, its ability to produce solely provisional conclusions (George & Bennett 2005: 28) and even though they may be firmly grounded in theory, one should be careful while using them for generalisation. Furthermore, the usage of most likely cases may well serve the goal of illustrating my theoretical framework, however in real life, the majority of IR actors' bilateral relations might not easily fall into one of the five categories of power bases, but rather, are their combinations. Moreover, though I tried to carefully list and analyse alternative explanations, the very fact that they were needed illustrates the presence, at least to some extent, of the "degrees of freedom" problem (sometimes also called "underdetermination" or "indeterminacy"), that is, limited ability to rule out all but one possible explanation (Bennett 2004: 41, George & Bennett 2005: 28)―yet, in fairness to me, I tried to avoid making strict deterministic statements, widely using such words as "usually," "often," "tend to," "mainly" etc. Finally, though I did my best to eschew the bias of source selection (by relying on research coming from the same theoretical tradition, country, method etc) and sharing their analytical biases (by citing a whole variety of sources and presenting alternative explanations), I had to leave out literature written in the languages of the countries under research (Serbian, German and Hebrew) due to my inability to read them. Directions for Future Research Lastly, I would like to outline some areas where the findings of my thesis may come in handy. Some of them are intuitive, directly resultant from the thesis' implications and limitations and hence, hardly need any detailed explanations. It is obvious, for example, that this research may well stimulate a debate on psychology behind soft power and be helpful for discussing the role of emotion, rationality and values in foreign policy making. Another such topic is the interaction and evolution of the bases of attraction, the topics more research on which is needed to show the complex and dynamic nature of attraction (see the Discussion section of Chapter 3).116 This, nevertheless, requires a collaboration between psychologists and IR 116 I may nevertheless advise those who want to undertake this to resist the instinctive temptation to structure everything which was initially high in my case. Some vague theories may intuitively appear Concluding Remarks 201 scholars and/or monitoring of new discoveries in the relevant psychological subfields (in the first place, social psychology and neuropsychology), as to date has been successfully done by such IR students as Neta Crawford, Jonathan Mercer, Emma Hutchison and others. Yet, other areas, where my research may also be of use, are less apparent, thus requiring special specifications. The first interesting task to do is to analyse the national variations of the concept in the countries where it has gained popularity―both at the official level and among political scientists. One thing is to simply review the national academic and official debates on soft power, trace their origin, evolution, peculiarities and connectedness to those countries' broader foreign policies (for approximate examples, see Benhaïm & Öktem 2015 on Turkey and Mingjiang 2008 on China). Apart from this, it seems also interesting to study the performativity of soft power in the countries where the concept is widespread, that is, how national discourses on soft power influence their actual foreign policies (Hayden 2017: 334). Both tasks, however, require a multinational team of researchers. Second, more can be elaborated on the concept of attraction itself which needs not necessarily be approached from the viewpoint of power relations. Bially Mattern (2005: 591), incidentally, argued for the need to more closely address attraction in IR as early as 2005, though little appears to have been done on this thus far. To date, the word "attraction" (or "attractiveness") with respect to international actors is mostly applied with regard to specific issue-areas, such as investments, business climate, tourism etc. However, what interests us more is a more general account of attraction and major principles and tendencies associated with it. While social psychology appears to be a valid area from which to draw theoretical foundations for this, some methodological tools may be found in the area-specific indices and rankings of countries' attractiveness (e.g. EY 2017, The European House―Ambrosetti 2017) as well as the few papers which take a subject-centered perspective on soft power and attraction (e.g. Rohrbacher & to be good potential topics for further structurisation and specification, but in fact, much about them may turn out to be researchable only on a case-by-case basis. Let us not search for strict laws where there are actually none. Concluding Remarks 202 Jeníčková 2011, Rostoks 2015, Patalakh 2017). Seemingly that good candidates for case studies in this regard are the territories of so-called "contested identity," which are frequently faced with "geopolitical choice" between bigger actors. One of such territories comprises the Eastern Partnership countries, where the perceived attractiveness of the EU and Russia appears to be a good potential source of empirical investigations. Third, my research seems to be able to cast new light on the theory of alignment. IR rationalist accounts of alignment grasp threatand reward-induced moves of B in favour of A by the term "bandwagoning".117 Applied to the discussion of military alliances, both types of alignment are illustrated in this passage by Walt (1985: 7-8, see also Schweller 1994, Wilkins 2012 for typologies including both coercionand reward-prompted types of alignment): What is the logic behind the bandwagoning hypothesis? Two distinct motives can be identified. First, bandwagoning may be adopted as a form of appeasement . . . Second, a state may align with the dominant side in war in order to share the spoils of victory. As captured in French and Raven's description of coercive and reward power as well as Baldwin (1971)'s study of power of positive and negative sanctions,118 the power of A over B differs depending if the latter bandwagons out of fear or desire to gain a reward. Some, however, deem this account of alignment as insufficient. Chidley, for instance, argues for integrating constructivist insights into the framework of alignment, so that it will embrace all possible motives that may impel B to act to A's advantage (2014: 154). Yet, her research merely identifies this problem without offering any new framework: the sole new type of alignment that she proposes for the future comprehensive account is "alignment for identity" (ibid) which, nonetheless, is not described in detail in her article. Hence, my three types of 117 "Alignment" refers to "expectations of states about whether they will be supported or opposed by other states in future interactions" (Snyder 1997: 6, cited in Chidley 2014: 147). I follow Chidley's profound literature review in preferring the term "alignment" over "alliance," given that, first, that latter pertains to the security field while the former may refer to bilateral relations in general and second, prominent theorists like Waltz, Walt and Schweller use the two terms interchangeably (ibid: 147-151). Moreover, as Wilkins' (2012: 59-74) typology suggests, even applied to the field of security, alliance is only one possible kind of alignment. 118 Ironically, in one of his early works, Baldwin (1971: 23, 32) cited French and Raven's work in his article and hence, is aware of it. However, 45 years later, he made no mention of it when suggesting future research on soft power define its bases from B's perspective in behavioural terms (2016: 169-170). 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