Priorities of the foreign policy of Russia: assessments and expectations of young specialists in international relations from Tomsk, 2012

During the first months of 2012 there was conducted a nation-wide study under the title «Foreign policy of Russia: assessments and expectations of young specialists». The study was commissioned by the Alexander Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund. The study was conducted by qualitative methods (semi-structured, in-depth interviews and focus-groups) among young specialists (not older than 30 years old) employed in the sphere of international relations in more than 10 Russian regions, including the country capitals. This nation-wide study focused on three thematic blocs: priorities of foreign policy of Russia; public diplomacy; training of cadres and informational support of Russia' foreign policy. The article presents opinions of respondents from Tomsk on all thematic blocs with some minor correction of questions without the change of their content. The author draws the main conclusion from those interviews stating that young generation of international relations specialists from Tomsk has a very realistic assessment of Russia's place in world, sees perspectives of the country development and pragmatically defines the essence of necessary changes for more successful implementation of the Russia's foreign policy. The majority of respondents critically accessed the current foreign policy of Russia and stressed that foreign policy should correspond to interests of society, but not merely of elites. Despite of expressed critical mind, young specialists were eager to actively work for the improvement of the image of Russia abroad, better strategy in foreign policy, and they saw close connection between the conditions of the society and foreign policy priorities of a country.

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