Social Dissonance And Non-Profit Organizations

Social Dissonance With regard to social dissonance, two examples will be presented – one dealing with Russia’s hypocritical approach to non-governmental organizations and non-profit organizations and the other with Russia’s stance on homophobia. While Russia actively uses state-developed non-profit organizations such as Russkiy Mir and the Gorchakov Fund to further its public diplomacy goals, it introduced a bill in July 2012 titled “On Amendments to the Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation regarding the Regulation of the Activities of Non-Profit Organizations Performing the Functions of a Foreign Agent” which requires organizations receiving foreign donations or engaging in political activity to register and declare themselves as foreign …show more content…
Although Putin has affirmed the open and accepting nature of Russia, the state discourse as well as public opinion on homosexuality remain conservative in comparison with the West. Many Russian regions have enacted laws restricting the distribution of ‘homosexual propaganda’ to minors and have experienced a surge in homophobic hate crimes using these laws as justification (Cooper, 2016). The Kremlin supposedly even cancelled a prominent high school exchange program because Russian national participants of the program remained in America and were “illegally adopted” by an American same-sex couple (Koshkin, 2014). The Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) Educational Program is supported by the U.S. Department of State and established in 1992. For more than two decades, the program operated to bring more than 22,000 high school students from the former Soviet Republic, including more than 8,000 from Russia (American Councils for International Education, 2016). Therefore, to support values which run contrary to the freedoms and openness described by its President Putin, Russia shut down one of the longest running avenues of exchange. This actions shows Russia’s duplicity and seriously harms its public diplomacy efforts with Europe and in the near …show more content…
This lack of success is due to a discrepancy between the official Russian rhetoric with its actions on the ground. While Russian President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov publicly express Russia’s commitment to peace and openness, actual Russian actions on the ground – such as increased military presence and killing of journalists –are completely opposite of their claims. With such different messages, Russia’s credibility decreases exponentially. If no one believes Russia’s messages, no wonder its approach is not working as public diplomacy depends on trust and the establishment of positive