Political Rivalry and Conflict in Putin’s Russia

The year 2015 throughout Russia was much less about what it seemed than what it revealed. On the surface, after the September 2015 combined regional and local elections, Russia appeared to be tranquil, politically disengaged, and supportive of President Vladimir Putin. The underlying reality was quite different. The election exposed a country divided by rivalry and a conflict of interests within the Russian political establishment set off by Putin’s own policies over the preceding two years. Since the election, Putin and the Kremlin have been confronting the challenge of balancing and containing the competing interests of institutions, levels of government, and establishment stakeholders who are less easily reconciled or controlled.     

History as a propaganda tool in Putin’s Russia

This paper analyzes the propaganda campaign orchestrated by the Russian authorities with the aim of promoting a version of the country’s history for political purposes. This version puts the accent on the exceptionality of Russian historical development, and is geared to endowing the figure of Vladimir Putin – seen as the person who has succeeded in carrying out a number of national projects that have been frequently abandoned throughout Russian history. The analysis presented here centres on two channels used in the campaign: school textbooks and the film industry.     

Shortcut to Legitimacy: Popularity in Putin’s Russia

Survey evidence suggests that Vladimir Putin’s legitimacy rests on three pillars: domestic order; economic prosperity; and the demonstration of great power status internationally. This is problematic inasmuch as it is based on a high degree of personal popularity which inhibits and contravenes the legal–rational legitimacy of state institutions. This requires continued delivery in all three areas in order to maintain the legitimacy of the regime. This framework allows us better to interpret the 2014 Ukraine crisis as an attempt to shore up support in one ‘pillar’ as performance-based legitimacy recedes.     

A Monument for our Times? Commemorating Victims of Repression in Putin’s Russia

Abstract

Three decades ago, a civic movement arose in the USSR around commemorating Stalin’s victims. Yet only in 2017, following President Vladimir Putin’s approbation, was a central monument to victims of repression constructed. Analysis of the genesis and results of the design process for the new monument shows that memory discourses in Russia have been harnessed to a form that allows civic activists and state officials to express a limited consensus. The truncated nature of the competition and the jury’s safe choice, however, produced a monument unlikely to become a locus for popular or official remembrance.     

Crowding Out Civil Society: State Management of Social Organisations in Putin’s Russia

There is considerable debate about the impact of the 2006 NGO Law and related Kremlin policies on social organisations in Russia. This article uses interviews with members of organisations focusing on human rights, women, and youth to assess the effects of these policies on civil society. It finds that groups that are critical of the regime have been systematically pushed out of the public sphere and supplanted by groups that are either neutral to, or in favour of, the regime. This finding has implications for the future development of Russian civil society and demonstrates a way that non-democratic rule has been ‘upgraded’ in Russia.