Abstract
The article presents new survey research, sensitive to local understandings of key terms, that helps resolve a longstanding debate on whether Russian public opinion generally supports democracy or authoritarianism. The central conclusion is that while Russians differ amongst themselves, they are best understood not as autocratic but as generally supportive of a particular form of democracy that social scientists have called ‘delegative democracy’. This logically consistent preference structure reconciles diverse arguments and findings in the literature, sheds light on Putin's puzzling decision to cede the presidency to Medvedev in 2008, and offers insight into the public opinion foundations of ‘hybrid regimes’.
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