“Soft power” and Russia’s export potential in non-raw materials sectors of economy

Abstract

The subject of the research is the export potential of Russia in non-resource sectors of the economy. The purpose of the article is to assess Russia’s international competitive advantages and export revenues in the sectors of the national economy that fall within the scope of “soft power”. The study, based on expert assessments and quantitative analysis methods, confirms the hypothesis that Russia has significant means of intellectual and emotional influence on foreign consumers, designed to improve the country’s current position in the system of international relations. It is shown how the tools of so-called “soft power” can be used to increase Russian geostrategic influence in the world, including using national ideological attitudes, conceptual political ideas and demonstration-effective business models. The realization of export revenue growth opportunities in areas of the national economy associated with the spread of “soft power” helps to solve this problem. Based on the concept of “soft power” and the postulates of the experience economy, dream society, behavioral economy and glam capitalism, with the involvement of statistical and factual materials, the prospects for the development of Russia’s export potential in the field of tourism, education, as well as certain areas of culture, art and sports that are most indicative of their competitiveness, including ballet, figure skating and animation, are evaluated. The author concludes that Russia has competitive advantages in both general and highly specialized areas of the non-resource economy, which, in addition to export revenues, can become a productive “soft power” of influence on foreign audiences. An important task of regulating foreign economic activity in the Russian Federation should be to support these areas of activity that are potentially attractive for increasing non-resource exports in the long term.