Роль России в культурном сотрудничестве в Баренц Евро-Арктическом регионе

From the end of the twentieth century up to these days, Russia underwent several transformations, including the image one, due to economic and political ups and downs. Each time, the strategy of Russia’s Foreign Cultural Policy was adjusted or revised following the interests corresponding to that time’s challenges. First of all, the construction of a national concept of foreign cultural policy depends on the political ideology adopted in a given society and on the prevailing ideas about the nature of cultural processes and the priority of solving cultural problems for the state. However, in each region where the interests of Russia are represented, such an approach is individual.
Activities in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region are part of Russia’s Arctic policy. For Russia, the Arctic region’s importance is primarily due to considerations of security and resource extraction (Heininen et al. 2014, 4). Indeed, today the Arctic is a promising region both economically and strategically. On the other hand, culture is a tool that makes it possible to expand and spread influence and maintain the country’s image in the international arena, thereby earning favor concerning activities that are not related to culture.
The Barents Euro-Arctic Region is a regional association of territories around the Barents Sea. Its main idea is to develop international cooperation. Russia is one of the four participating countries pursuing its interests in this region. The BEAR embraces the territories of Finland (Oulu Region, Lapland, North Karelia, Kainuu), Sweden (Norbotten, Västerbotten), Russia (Arkhangelsk, Karelia, Nenets, Komi, Murmansk) and Norway (Finnmark, Troms, Nordland).
One of the main goals of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council (the leading institution for cross-border cooperation at the BEAR) is to preserve culture, seek communication through cultural projects and help in research projects. These goals are mentioned in various programs dedicated to the development of the BEAR in the culture field (Barents Voices 2003-2006, New Winds in the Barents Region 2008- 2010, New Horizons in the Barents Region 2011-2013, Strategies for Cultural Cooperation in the Barents Region 2014-2018 and Creative Barents 2019-2023).
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Various cultural festivals related to cultural cooperation in the Barents Region are implemented annually in Russia. Of course, participation in any organization or regional collaboration is a way for the state to learn, increase the prestige internationally as well as to achieve and defend particular national interests.
1.1. Research Gap & Research Questions
The Arctic becomes a crucial topic in international relations today. In the current realities this direction is one of the most important places of a political struggle. Russia has its own ambitions, claims, and according to its position on the globe it has rights and preferences to use such a promising region as the Arctic. In this regard, the Euro-Arctic direction can be considered a uniquely located geostrategic and geo-economic base of Russia’s interests and projects in the Arctic. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to find out:
What goals does Russia pursue by participating in and organizing cooperation in the Arctic region?
To achieve the goal, several additional questions were posed:
1. What is cultural cooperation for Russian foreign policy?
2. What is the reason for the existence of international cultural cooperation in
the BEAR?
3. What is the role of Russia in cultural projects in the BEAR? 4. Has COVID-19 changed the position of Russia in the region?
1.2 Methodology and Data
In order to most fully answer the main research question, a multiple case study was used. The study chronologically lists the cultural and scientific projects in which Russia took part in one way or another. Five Barents Cultural programs were taken as cases for this thesis.
According to Florian Kohlbacher, “case studies seem to be the preferred strategy when ‘how’ or ‘why’ questions were posed, when the investigator had little control over events, and when the focus was on a contemporary phenomenon within some real-life context” (Kohlbacher 2006). In a multiple case study, the researcher

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examined multiple cases to understand the differences and similarities between them (Baxter and Jack 2008, 25). According to Gustafsson, “an all-embracing fact was that the evidence created from a multiple case study were measured strong and reliable” (Gustafsson 2017, 3).
Case studies helped in a close and scrupulous examination of projects both at the institutional and local levels. This approach helped to look at things and analyze events realistically. Consequently, I used the program documents and declarations of Russia on cultural policy and the development of the Arctic regions and doctrines and program documents for the development of the BEAC to see the shift of Russia’s official position within the BEAR.
The main research method was qualitative content analysis. The introduction of content analysis into political research is associated with the name of the American political scientist G. Lasswell, who first used this method when studying political leaders’ speeches, educational and scientific literature of Germany and the Soviet Union in the 1920s – 1940s. The method’s essence was to translate textual information into quantitative data, which was used in subsequent mathematical processing. First, the frequency of using keywords and phrases (semantic blocks) in the text is determined. Then the frequency of their use is calculated in relation to each other and to the total amount of information (Semyonova 2010, 103-104).
In contrast to quantitative analysis, qualitative content analysis is focused on the idiographic approach. It relies on an inductive method of obtaining knowledge, emphasizing the singularity of the phenomena under study, their ambiguity, and their complexity. The main difference between qualitative and quantitative content analysis is that quantitative analysis is focused on explaining the content, on the general principles of material analysis, on the search for the universal through analysis, decomposition of the text into its constituent parts, and analysis of these variables. The qualitative content analysis aims to understand the phenomena under study; to analyze the relations and processes between these phenomena; it is focused on covering the entire set and complexity of the studied phenomena and aims to

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study isolated cases. Qualitative content analysis tasks are to formulate hypotheses, create new theories, deepen the material under study, classify and test these hypotheses and theories (Hsieh and Shannon 2005, 65). German researcher Meiring believes that “Any recorded communication, including transcripts of interviews, documents, articles, can be the object of qualitative content analysis” and identifies five areas of application of qualitative content analysis:
• communication (content analysis itself);
• hermeneutics (as the art of interpretation);
• qualitative social research (interpretive paradigm);
• literary criticism and psychology (Mayring 2000). This analysis is
implemented in the third chapter of the thesis.
Qualitative content analysis was chosen because the research was based on
program documents, description of project activities, doctrines, and strategies of Russia, the BEAR, and the BEAC. Qualitative content analysis is applicable in studies that “pay attention to the content or the contextual meaning of the text” (Hsieh and Shannon 2005, 126-127).
Thus, the qualitative content analysis seems appropriate since it implies the complete analysis of texts. Working with qualitative content analysis traditionally amounts to “coding”. These are “methods for finding and identifying key ideas in data; similar grouping types of information by category” (Rubin and Rubin 2003, 65-66). A code is a word, a phrase that symbolically denotes the result or essence of the data (Saldana 2013, 3). However, it is vital to note that the coding depends solely on the interpretation of the author. Moreover, there are no strict rules as to which codes can be considered correct or not. Most importantly, the codes must correspond to the research questions. Mayring also speaks of encoding information (Mayring 1994). He introduces the key concepts of qualitative analysis:
1. Substantiation of the analyzed material (what material is the basis of the analysis?);
2. Analysis of the situation in the data under study (by whom and under what circumstances was this material obtained?);

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3. Formal characteristics of the material (in what form is this material presented?);
4. Direction of analysis (what is at the center of the study?);
5. Theoretical substantiation (theoretical substantiation of the questions asked by the researcher);
6. Determination of analysis techniques and creation of an analysis model (analysis is carried out in specific steps, each of which can be checked and transferred to other objects under study);
7. Determination of units of analysis.
8. Analyzing by highlighting a system of categories:
9. Testing the categorical system based on theory and empirical material
10. Interpretation of the results
11. Reference to a previously developed reliability criterion.
In this thesis several paragraphs are of the main importance: the characteristics
of the material, empirical material, and the interpretations of the results.
It can be noted that qualitative content analysis opens the way to theoretical and methodological qualitative data assessment. Its aim is to substantiate hypotheses and discover new theories. It is not focused on establishing individual factors but is aimed at constructing possible relations between various elements. A particular advantage of this method is that it allows one to harmoniously combine both qualitative and quantitative indicators. This method allowed to compare the frequencies and the content of the references to the BEAR in official documents of the Russian Federation. It helped to understand the level of importance of the cooperation for the Russian authorities. Besides, this method will enable one to see the text’s hidden content, which is not openly mentioned in the text but is present. By systematically assessing the text’s meaningful meaning, it becomes possible not to reduce the text-only analysis to quantitative indicators. As a result, a theoretical study of the problem being examined becomes possible. This allows a clearer view of the interaction between theory and empirical material. Categories arise from a

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specific text and develop further in the process of their assessment. (Kirpikov 2018, 72).
For the research, two large categories that helped classify Russia’s project activities in the region were used. The first was the division into the state level of initiatives and the regional one. The second was the projects’ division, where Russia was a direct organizer or initiator of cultural, scientific, and educational activities or just its participant. These categories helped to define Russia’s role in the BEAR, and therefore the purpose of its activities in the organization and the region.
There were three main approaches to qualitative content analysis: conventional content analysis, directed content analysis, and summative content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon 2005, 67). In this work, a directed content analysis was mostly used. The guided content analysis focused on existing theory, which helped to create codes and categories in advance. This allowed predictions to be made considering the possibilities of category variation, the original coding scheme, and relations between codes. This approach was “referred to as deductive category application” (Mayring 2000, 81).
Directed content analysis was applied to study the actors and their goals in promoting regional cultural cooperation. Thus, subcategories appear in the existing categories of the participant/organizer. The first is an exclusively institutional state level of cultural communication; the second is genuine and not declared participation in local communities.
In this research, the following approach was followed. Firstly, I carefully studied Russia’s official documents concerning foreign cultural policy, documents of the BEAC and the Barents Regional Council, paying particular attention to those related to cultural cooperation in the region and studying them using the qualitative content analysis process proposed by Mayring Philipp. The analysis of existing cultural and scientific projects in the BEAR was carried out the same way. In addition to studying the documentation, I analyzed articles, interviews, and feedback on events.

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The comparison of those two categories was not the aim of the study itself but their analysis was essential for the understanding of the Russian policy in the region. The main assumption was that the regional/governmental level would show which part was mostly interested in the cooperation. Whereas the number of the organized projects would show the involvement into the cooperation.
Comparative method was also used during the research in order to find the evolution of Russian role in the programs of the BEAR.