Russia and the West: Is there a Values Gap?
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Russia and the West: Is there a Values Gap? Stephen Whitea, Margot Lightb and Ian McAllisterc a
Department of Politics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8RT, UK. E-mail: [email protected] b Department of International Relations, London School of Economics, Hougton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK. E-mail: [email protected] c Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]
For centuries, Russians have wondered if they are a part of ‘Europe’ and Westerners have questioned whether Russians are ‘European’. Since the collapse of the USSR, economic reform in Russia has followed Western models and good relations with the European Union have been high on Russia’s foreign policy agenda. However, EU policy is based on an assumption that Russia will adopt European values. This article investigates whether there is a commitment to common values, or whether there are differences that might put the EU–Russian relationship at risk. Comparing the results of a national representative survey conducted in December 2003 and January 2004 with the findings of a 2001 survey and with European responses to Eurobarometer surveys, the authors find that there are consistent and often substantial differences in values between Russians and their counterparts in EU member countries and that the values gap appears to be widening. International Politics (2005) 42, 314–333. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ip.8800114 Keywords: Russia; European Union; the west; civilization; values
For centuries, Russians have wondered if they are a part of ‘Europe’. Geographically, they are Eurasian. However, the boundaries of ‘Europe’ and ‘Asia’ have been in different places at different times, and in any case about three-quarters of the Russian population live west of the Urals, in what has always been considered a part of Europe. The issue, for Russians themselves, has more to do with values, identities and histories — an ‘imagined Europe’ that has reflected their rather different ambitions for their own country. For ‘Westernisers’, as they became known, Russia had always been a part of the wider Europe — or at least should aspire towards it. It took its law codes from Napoleonic France, its hierarchy of official positions from Sweden and Denmark, and its Academy of Sciences from Prussia (indeed for many years the Academy was ‘dominated, if not actually run, by German and Germantrained scientists and scholars’) (Raeff, 1973, 31). Russian students went to Europe to complete their education, like Boris Pasternak; its noble families
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spoke in French, other than with their servants; and the royal family itself took summer holidays in Nice, with its extravagant Orthodox cathedral (indeed, many of the royal families of Europe were directly related at this time). This, surely, was the way forward. A rather different view was taken by the Slavophiles, whose views were strongly influenced by those of the Orthodox Church. For the Slavophiles, Rus
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