Beyond “Putin's Russia”: Society and Politics in a Changing Russia

Abstract

Constructing Grievance: Ethnic Nationalism in Russia's Republics. By Elise Giuliano. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011. 234 pp., $45.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-4745-7). Popular Support for an Undemocratic Regime: The Changing Views of Russians. By Richard Rose, William Mishler, Neil Munro. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 206 pp., $30.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-521-22418-5). The Politics of Inequality in Russia. By Thomas F Remington. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 234 pp., $29.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-1-107-42224-7). Much discussion and research on Russian politics justifiably place central importance on Vladimir Putin, his societal and political impact, and his regime's role in a number of domestic and foreign policy developments. After all, he has been the leading figure of the Russian state for more than a decade and has left an indelible imprint on the changing contours of Russian politics and society. Similarly, the 1990s were replete with examinations of Boris Yeltsin building a new Russia from the embers of the collapsed Soviet state. The three books reviewed here examine important and fascinating questions that go beyond the elite intrigues of Russia's national executive and integrate an analysis of societal developments that provoke reflection on political and societal diversity in Russia and its regions. Building on a broad theoretical range of existing scholarship, these works take on important questions and shed valuable light on the factors shaping varying levels of nationalist mobilization, the dynamics of growing public support for a regime that has become less democratic, and the political determinants of income inequality. More than mere case studies of an important country, these books take a cross-sectional, regional, and/or longitudinal approach and are attentive to systematic data collection and analysis, which enhances their explanatory leverage. For some, additional comparative explorations of the applicability of arguments to other country contexts would lend even greater weight to the arguments and possibly would expand the book's readership beyond Russia's specialists and observers. Nonetheless, these books make for thought-provoking reading and provide rich material about important developments in post-Soviet Russian politics. In Constructing Grievance , Elise Giuliano explores the essential and yet often overlooked puzzle concerning the “dog that did not bark,” namely why nationalist mobilization had more mass appeal in some of Russia's ethnically defined republics and resonated less in others. …