Since 2006, Surkov has advocated a political doctrine he has called sovereign democracy, to counter democracy promotion conducted by the US and European states. Judged by some Western media as controversial, this view has not generally been shared by Russian media and the Russian political elite. Surkov sees this concept as a national version of the common political language that will be used when Russia talks to the outside world. As the most influential ideologist of "sovereign democracy", Surkov gave two programmatic speeches in 2006: "Sovereignty is a Political Synonym of Competitiveness" in February and "Our Russian Model of Democracy is Titled Sovereign Democracy" in June 2006.