PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • The Baltic States Are Also Worried About Russia

    View
  • International Society Must Act in the Wake of Russia’s Failed Opposition

    View
  • The Collapse of the Soviet Union | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

    View
  • Labor Migration in Russia | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

    View
  • Did Russia Put Its Geopolitical Glasses Back On? It Never Took Them Off in the First Place

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Religion and Soft Power in the South Caucasus | Articles by Berg, Makarychev, Valiyev, and Yatsyk

  • November 7, 2017
  • PONARS Eurasia

(Routledge) See the articles by PONARS Eurasia members Eiki Berg, Andrey Makarychev, Anar Valiyev, and Alexandra Yatsyk in Religion and Soft Power in the South Caucasus (August 2017) (Subscription required). Introduction: In the Caucasus region, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and their powerful neighbours Russia, Turkey, Iran and the EU negotiate their future policies and spheres of influence. This volume explores the role of religion in the South Caucasus to describe and explain how transnational religious relationships intermingle with transnational political relationships. The concept of ‘soft power’ is the heuristic starting point of this important investigation to define the importance of religion in the region. Drawing on a three-year project supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the book brings together academics from the South Caucasus and across Europe to offer original empirical research and contributions from experienced researchers in political science, history and oriental studies. This book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of post-Soviet studies, international relations, religious studies and political science.

Iranian soft power in Azerbaijan: does religion matter?

By Anar Valiyev

Very little research has been undertaken to study the role of soft power in international relations. Moreover, previous books and articles have mostly been limited to study of the soft power of secular regimes such as the USA, the UK, China, Germany or Russia. Researchers have mostly ignored the role of religious soft power or the use of soft power by theocratic governments such as the Vatican, Iran or Saudi Arabia. In studies of religious soft power, researchers usually mention the role of transnational religious actors such as Al Qaeda, American evangelical organizations or the Roman Catholic Church (Rudolph and Piscatori 1997, Haynes 2001, 2009, 2012). Their role in international relations and their impact on government policies has been the topic of many debates. The main reason for such an interest came from these organizations’ increased capacity to use soft power and ‘shape the values and norms of international relations’ (Thomas 1999). Moreover, the extreme secularization of political regimes and monopolization of religious soft power by non-governmental actors has completely marginalized the study of how the state uses its religious soft power. From this perspective, the use of soft power by theocratic regimes and especially the use of religion as a tool becomes a very interesting topic of study. There are not many countries in the world that could be considered theocracies. Iran, as one of the rare examples, represents an interesting case. While enough has been written on Iranian soft power in Iraq (Haynes 2012) or Iranian influence elsewhere (Nasr 2006), not much has been written on Tehran’s soft power in Azerbaijan, one of the post-Soviet republics. This chapter argues that Iranian soft power is slowly encroaching on Azerbaijan. Despite all of the Azerbaijani government’s attempts to curb soft power, Iranians nevertheless continue to engage, sometimes very successfully. This chapter also claims that religious soft power is Iran’s most important form of soft power, despite the fact that Tehran actively uses other forms and tools.

Face to face with conservative religious values: assessing the EU’s normative impact in the South Caucasus

By Eiki Berg and Alar Kilp

Since the early 2000s, the EU has evolved as a shaper of norms and a definer of what is “normal” in international politics. It became an exponent of a number of core norms, the most important of which were peace, democracy and human rights, and encouraged other countries to adopt this normative agenda for their own good. The idea of Normative Power Europe (Manners 2002) rests on the widely shared understanding that instead of exerting military power, which is not really an option, the EU may increase their leverage “softly” by imposing liberal democratic norms on the third countries interested in closer relations with the union. As this softer approach still includes conditionality clauses, financial inducements and persuasion, it diverges somewhat from what Joseph Nye (2004) has described as truly soft power, i.e. ‘the ability to get others to want the same as you want, without coercion or payment’, based on such commodities as cultural appeal, political values and legitimate policies (for more on that, see Nielsen 2016).

Russia as a counter-normative soft power: between ideology and policy

By Andrey Makarychev and Alexandra Yatsyk

The concept of soft power is usually referred to as one of the most important components of states’ policies towards each other, grounded in the force of attraction as opposed to coercion and projection of either military or economic strength. The high popularity of this concept in academic and political discourses can be explained by its ability to conceptualize power through norms and identities, and relate them to non-coercive policy tools.

Prospects for thinking about soft power beyond Joseph Nye

By Andrey Makarychev

Yet, as with many widely used concepts, the meaning of soft power may have changed over time. Nye’s approach to soft power left many issues unresolved: in fact, he was more interested in distinguishing the hard from the soft in his interpretation of power dynamics than in problematizing and contextualizing what attraction is and how it is socially constructed in different policy environments. For Nye, attraction was more or less evident-a set of cultural practices grounded in liberal normative tradition that appeared unchallenged at the end of the Cold War.

 

PONARS Eurasia
+ posts
  • PONARS Eurasia
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/ponars-eurasia/
    The Collapse of the Soviet Union | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy
  • PONARS Eurasia
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/ponars-eurasia/
    Labor Migration in Russia | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy
  • PONARS Eurasia
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/ponars-eurasia/
    The View from the South: The War from a Central Asian and Caucasian Perspective (March 28)
  • PONARS Eurasia
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/ponars-eurasia/
    Ukrainathon | 24 Hours of Expert Lectures Related to the Invasion
Related Topics
  • Berg
  • Makarychev
  • Valiyev
  • Yatsyk
Previous Article
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Central Asia’s Borders: The Next Twenty-Five Years

  • November 6, 2017
  • George Gavrilis
View
Next Article
  • Commentary | Комментарии

The Paradox of Uzbek Terror: Peace at Home, Violence Abroad

  • November 7, 2017
  • Marlene Laruelle
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

The Baltic States Are Also Worried About Russia

  • Ralph Clem and Erik Herron
  • May 19, 2022
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

International Society Must Act in the Wake of Russia’s Failed Opposition

  • Robert Orttung
  • May 12, 2022
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

The Collapse of the Soviet Union | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • May 12, 2022
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Labor Migration in Russia | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • May 11, 2022
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Did Russia Put Its Geopolitical Glasses Back On? It Never Took Them Off in the First Place

  • Martin Jirušek
  • May 5, 2022
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Between the EU and Russia: Domains of Diversity and Contestation (April 29-30)

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • April 25, 2022
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

How Popular Is Putin, Really?

  • Ora John Reuter, Noah Buckley, Katerina Tertytchnaya and Kyle L. Marquardt
  • April 14, 2022
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

The View from the South: The War from a Central Asian and Caucasian Perspective (March 28)

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • March 26, 2022

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.