elklynx schrieb am 05.12.2024 22:03:
kwT
Hat er aber nicht. Er war immer ein Advokat für eine "harte Linie" gegenüber Moskau und war federführend bei der Stigmatisierung Russlands ab 2006 als autokratisch und feindlich.
Im Mai 2014 haben Andrei P. Tsygankov und David Parker diesen gesamten Themenkomplex rund um die Stigmatisierung und die Arbeit der "Demokratisiserungsmaschine" in ihrer Arbeit "The securitization of democracy: Freedom House ratings of Russia" kritisch unter die Lupe genommen:
Despite considerable Russian cooperation following 9/11, talk of a new cold war, with Russia as the main contributing factor, was increasingly popular as the decade progressed (Bugajski 2004, MacKinnon 2007, Weiss 2007, Lucas 2008), and found support from some within the White House. Cheney (2006) initiated accusations of Russia as reviving its authoritarian system and using its energy as a weapon of intimidation. An experienced cold war warrior, he was comfortable thinking about Russia as a potential threat and advocating what in practice would have amounted to a strategy of isolating Russia. After the Kremlin’s attempts to influence the results of Ukrainian elections, the idea of confronting Russia by championing democratic values in the region became popular with both neoconservative and neoliberal thinkers and materialized in various publications and policy actions. By relegating Russia’s ratings from “partially free” to “not free”, FH was both reflecting and further encouraging the emerging consensus in the neoconservative circles.
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In addition to the politics of memory, FH ratings and activities can be understood in terms of the politics of special interests. Formed on the basis of the discussed cold war identity, neoconservative groups shared the assumption of security by promotion of democracy.
Following the cold war’s end, their immediate preoccupation became the maximization of available political and economic resources. As a result of their activities, the cold war identity survived, albeit in a modified form. With disappearance of the Soviet enemy, Russia emerged as a perceived potential enemy, rather than a partner. A leaked draft document “Defense Planning Guidance” in 1992, overseen by Cheney and co-authored by Wolfowitz, outlined the desire to prevent the emergence of a rival superpower and detailed the ambition to “increase US influence around the world, to further an atmosphere conducive to democratic progress, and to protect free commerce and ensure US access to world markets, associated critical resources, the oceans, and space” (United States Defense Department 1992).
Specific political and economic interests of the identified neoconservative groups might have included securing state defence contracts, obtaining privileged terms for American energy companies in Russia, and expanding geographic control over strategically important territories in Eurasia. In all these cases, a Russia that is centralized, independent, yet not anti-Western presented American neoconservatives with a problem.
In attempting to exert pressure on Russia, FH and other organizations of similar convictions initiated campaigns through media, lobbying, and public testimonies. Their presented image of Russia was of an alien and hostile regime that had to be confronted, rather than engaged.
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The article has sought to explain reasons for Western ratings of Russia beyond Russian domestic politics (which are moving in a negative direction) and the politics of special interests and memory behind FH ratings of Russia specifically. Russia’s rejection of these ratings is partly conceptual and has roots in the nation’s historical emphasis on strong governance and state centralization. Scholars noted that FH operates on some questionable assumptions about democracy and media freedom. For instance, FH tends to equate weakness of the executive branch with democracy and a large quantity of media sources with their freedom or independence.7
The FH reasons for assessing Russia as “not free” are in part shaped by foreign policy preferences of the US security elites and are also linked to the politics of memory of the cold war which perceive Russia as a potential threat rather than as a partner and influence very specific expectations for Russia and of what democracy should look like. These elites tend to view democracy promotion through the lens of national security. They assess political changes in Russia in terms of bringing the country to agreement with the USA’s international policies. The main assumption here is that a Russia that follows the US institutional model will be more likely to comply with the USA’s strategic priorities.
Promotion of power objectives must go hand in hand with promotion of values especially when the US power objectives are strongly challenged. In the latter case, democracy promotion becomes not just a foreign policy objective, but also a tool for exerting international pressures. The cold war origins of FH and shared historical experiences between the USA and the Soviet Union during the cold war make FH analysis of Russia a special case. Future research into how generalizable the analytical approach used here could be to wider Russia–West relations would enhance our understanding of the motivations and mechanisms behind ratings of democracy.The argument has implications not only for our understanding of the role of special interests in policy and politics, but also for our understanding of democracy as well.
Depending on social and political conditions, different nations adopt institutions that balance their demands for human rights, economic prosperity, and security from outside threats. A universal aspiration, democracy has stronger historical roots in some parts of the world and cannot be easily exported to other parts in a uniform manner. Although it is beyond the scope of the article to examine in detail the impact of US democracy promotion efforts in Russia, it is important to note that these efforts have, unfortunately and to a limited degree, potentially contributed to negative trends in Russian democratization and for wider US-Russian relations. Indeed, Cohen (2013) suggested that he could not “think of a single US intervention that significantly abetted Russia’s democratization, only ones that made no real difference or hindered it”. While there are a myriad of factors influencing Russia’s domestic politics, US democracy promotion within Russia and on its borders have contributed to negative trends in two ways. First, it may have contributed to genuine fears about perceived interference and undermining of sovereignty which contributed to the further centralization of power in Russia. Second, it may have provided Putin and other officials with a pretext for seeking to quell dissent at home, which they might have instigated anyway. For these reasons, US democracy contributed to tensions with Russia during periods where cooperation was important. FH has contributed to this through its influential reports, lobbying of government overseas programmes and, providing justification for existing anti-Russia agendas. A number of Western thinkers (Goldsmith 2008, Brooks 2012, Kupchan 2012) have recognized the limits of democracy promotion and called for a re-assessment of the policy or a humbler approach to its delivery. While Russia is by no means an “absolutely equal great democratic state” with the USA, as it has asserted, assessments of its political system that are excessively critical and simplify the serious challenges of transition contribute to Russian perceptions of democracy promotion as instrumentalized to exert US influence (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation 2002).
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272927368_The_securitization_of_democracy_Freedom_House_ratings_of_Russia
Es entlarvt die "Demokratisierungsbemühungen" als interessengeleitet, um geopolitische Dominanz und wirtschaftliche Interessen und Einfluss zu befördern, während sie gleichzeitig zur Verhärtung der Fronten essenziell beigetragen haben.