Russia’s Public Diplomacy: Evolution and Institutions

Russian federation has been actively instrumentalizing “soft power” and public diplomacy” within its foreign policy formulation and implementation processes. for this end, new institutions were set, the already existing ones were started to be used within this “public diplomacy” structure. the vacuum that existed with the removal of socialist ideology has been tried to be filled with the activities of non-governmental organizations (ngo) that are acting along with the state. the new situation has been institutionalized through the establishment of western style “public diplomacy institutions”. it is one of the main presumptions of this article that ngo activity on foreign policy field would only be influential in peace times and its influence would be quite limited in periods of great crises, tensions and fights.