Foreign Agents in Russia - Doria

76
positive thing.
After signing the updated law on NKOs president Putin said he was positive and proud of
the law but he did not clarify why (Ria 2012a2). In his later statements Putin was more particular of
foreign agents being a neutral procedure (Ria 2013v1) and that the law prevents the undesirable
foreign financed opposition in Russia. (Ria 2013b2.) The latter statement actually states that the
foreign financing of NKOs acting politically is funding of Russian opposition which is not in
accordance to his vision of effective and good political competition. Here the foreign agent
phenomenon is again portrayed rather negative suggesting that the law obligating certain NKOs to
register as foreign agents is preventing this phenomenon. Since the law does not directly prevent
activities of NKOs then it can be considered that the foreign agent label prevents indirectly
injurious effects of foreign agents. It is not described in the statements of government officials how
is this indirect prevention expected to work. Instead in the statements objecting the whole juridical
foreign agent application these indirect means are described to actualize through the socially
embedded unacceptability of the ideas of foreign agents. Therefore the basis of the competing
discourses of foreign agents that appear in the pro-Kremlin and oppositional statements, seems
more compatible than how the discourses first appear. The critical statements on the direct foreign
agent -related applications of the NKO law were more related to the incoherent and broadly
interpretative definition of political action than the basic idea of foreign agents. This stimulated a
wave of remedy suggestions to re-define coherently the political action or make an entirely new
definition for politically operating NKOs receiving foreign funding. (Ria 2013m, 2013r1.)
4.4. Digest of Events, Words and Foreign Agents
The main argument of this chapter is that there are two main distinguishable popular groups in
discourses of foreign agents: according to one foreign agent is so pejorative that it is not correct to
use it in the context of socially active non-commercial organizations receiving assets from abroad.
According to the other group foreign agents can be a threat or a risk, but they are still allowed to
work under increased monitoring. Accordingly foreign agent is a natural definition of a subject for
this legal purpose. The former group describes what a foreign agent is not and highlights the
emotionally negative terminology while the latter group focuses on the logical legitimization of
monitoring the two defined features of the foreign agents, the foreign financing and political
activities. While these two competing groups of discourses make the most dominant two of foreign
agents, their ideas and practices are sometimes mutually compatible most notably in mutual
understanding of the basic idea of the functions of foreign agents in promoting agendas of foreign
state regimes.