Samenvatting

This chapter links democracy promotion to soft power in order to highlight how the spread of democracy has changed the balance of power between the West and Russia. It considers Putins speech to the 2015 United Nations General Assembly as his intellectual response to democracy promotion and democratization. In the last four decades, democratization added significantly to the number of states on friendly terms with the West, in particular extending its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. In response Putin invokes realism as a denial of the agency of pro-democracy protesters. Contrary to both Putin and soft power theory, this chapter argues that the agents of change are individuals and non-governmental organizations who operate largely independent of state power. While they produce outcomes conducive to Western interests, Western states cannot control their activities without irreparable damage to their own societies core values.