ABSTRACT
The focus on Russian governmental foreign policy in the literature on external influences of autocratic regimes in the post-Soviet Eurasia, to some extent, diverts attention away from another, equally important topic – the role of non-governmental actors. Some studies, discussed in the Chapter 2 of this volume, investigate the role of Russian business in this context; but the more subtle effects of non-governmental organizations, which may be linked to the government or promote its activities, or pursue its own (autocracy-promoting) agenda, remained almost entirely outside the scope of the literature. This omission is unfortunate, particularly because the Soviet Union was probably the most pronounced example of how NGOs and political parties abroad can be used as both tools of strengthening foreign policy and of regime export (from Comintern to close ties to Communist parties around the world). This chapter attempts to fill the gap, by concentrating on the role of Russian NGOs as promoters of Russian foreign policy in the post-Soviet space. I review their activity and the nature of their link to the government and official policy; while doing so, I specifically attempt to find out which goals of the Russian foreign policy actually guide the behaviour of NGOs (if at all) and whether one can observe any evidence of ‘autocracy-promotion’ or ‘regime-boosting’ in their actions. In terms of the language of Chapter 2 of this volume, I concentrate on the anti-democratic non-governmental actors – which, as mentioned in that chapter, constitute a particularly unexplored research area in the literature.
