Bracketing the Problems at Home, Scrutinizing the Near Abroad: Does the “Compatriots” Nationalist Discourse Portray a Russian Foreign Policy Entrapped in the Democratization Process?

Since 1991 the Russian Federation is the main successor of the Soviet unio‎n, and as such, it has a heavy heritage. On one hand, all the imperial and communist grandeur surrounding the Soviet unio‎n and its statute as a superpower on the global arena passed on to the surviving state, Russia, and thus this legacy dictated that it would be a major actor on the world stage. Because of this, Russian Federation since its birth has been under the close scrutiny of the West, which is well aware of the imperialist temptations that might appear in the future. On the other hand, the country faced the imperative to transform the moribund communist centrally planed economy into a competitive market economy, and to reshape the state’s relation with its citizens on democratic bases. By undertaking this course of action, the Russian Federation aims at achieving “normalcy”, by joining the family of democratic countries.