BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
In some countries, Russia has made progress among both far-right nationalists and more traditional con- servative parties. In Hungary, for example, Moscow has a reliable ally in Jobbik and a business partner in the ruling Fidesz party, which has been critical of the EU's economic sanctions.* The Hungarian parliament conducted an investigation into allegations that the Kremlin was helping to finance Jobbik. There were also charges that a Jobbik member of the European Parliament was a Russian agent. Gabor Vona, the chairman of Jobbik, has embraced the idea of Eur- asianism and speculated that Hungary could serve as a “bridge” between Europe and Asia.
At the intergovernmental level, Russia in 2015 provided Hungary with a $10.8 billion loan to expand the Paks nuclear power plant, a facility that supplies 40 percent of the country’s electricity. The project was to have been put out for open bidding until Hungarian officials abruptly decided to accept the proposal from Russia's state nuclear energy firm—financed by the Kremlin's loan—without competition.® Some believe that the Paks deal is meant to encourage the Fidesz government to continue its support for an EU policy that would be more sympathetic toward Russian interests.® While the Fidesz leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has been cautious in public statements about Putin and Russia, he did identify Russia as one of several countries with illiberal or authoritarian governments that would pro- vide the models for global political development in the future, as opposed to supposedly declining powers like the United States and the EU's founding members.’
The Russian government has also developed friendly ties to parties in Slovakia. Marian Kotleba, leader of the far-right People’s Party—Our Slovakia, supported Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in his decision to reject an association agreement with the EU and pursue closer ties with Russia instead—a decision that ultimately led to Yanukovych’s fall from power in February 2014. Slovakia's left-leaning populist prime minister, Robert Fico, has publicly expressed his lack of enthusiasm for the EU sanctions imposed on Rus- sia following the invasion of Ukraine.’
In other countries, there is evidence that Moscow has bankrolled environmentalist protests against the devel- opment of local hydrocarbon resources, which would reduce European dependence on Russian oil and nat- ural gas. In 2012, street protests compelled Bulgaria's prime minister, Boyko Borisov, to cancel contracts with Chevron to explore shale-oil sites in the country. Those who suspect the Kremlin's involvement in the demon-
strations point to a €20 million media campaign that was handled by companies with Russian ties, as well as enthusiastic support from Ataka, a far-right political party that is aggressively pro-Russia?
Russia and the right
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union could count on the uncritical support of a network of left-wing parties and personalities in the democratic world. Some were formally communist; others were independent leftists or part of what was called the peace camp, which argued that the West, especially the United States, shared responsibility with the Soviets for the world’s political tensions, and therefore chose a path of pollit- ical neutrality. In the Cold War's later years, a growing collection of business interests encouraged détente between the Soviet Union and the United States due to the economic opportunities it would offer.
Under Putin, Russia has formed its alliances on a strictly nonideological basis. Russia has built close diplomatic ties with Venezuela, governed by a socialist movement; Iran, an authoritarian system under the rule of Shiite Muslim clerics; Syria, a dictatorship with nominally Arab nationalist views; and China, a formally communist regime devoted to state-led capitalism. The interests that draw these governments together are a common hostility to democratic norms, a need for allies to block criticism and sanctions at inter-
national bodies, a fear of “color revolutions” and the potential consequences of democracy-promotion projects backed by foreign donors, and an adversarial relationship with the United States.
In its dealings with European political parties or move- ments, Russia adheres to a similar policy of ideolog- ical indifference, focusing instead on those with an interest in disrupting Europe's political establishment and weakening its unity. Thus Putin has courted leftist parties like Syriza, which leads the current govern- ment of Greece and opposes austerity measures imposed by the EU. Nigel Farage, former leader of the anti-EU United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), and Nick Griffin, head of the far-right British National Party, have both praised Putin for his leadership quali- ties; but so has Alex Salmond of the Scottish National Party, which seeks Scottish independence within the EU and supports social democratic policies.
For the most part, however, Russia's allies in dem- ocratic countries are found on the political right. A Swedish journalist who examined votes in the Europe- an Parliament reported that right-leaning Euroskeptic
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