Eminent Western speakers put forward seemingly logical ideas on modernization and what Russia needs to do to modernize at the Global Policy Forum, which was held in Yaroslavl on Thursday and Friday. But most of them were not Russia experts as such and were thus naively overoptimistic on the country’s willingness and ability to implement change.
Applying Western logic to Russia is a risky business since things here are often the opposite of how things happen in the West. Will this modernization effort be any different from numerous others in Russia’s history?
