Russian Protest Research Articles

Bruket av revolutionär historia i rysk protestkonst (2008–2012): ett funktionellt perspektiv

The article addresses uses of revolutionary history in the Russian protest art created during Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency (2008–2012) and reception of these uses. Since the protest art is considered by many as an arena where dissatisfaction with the ruling regime, expressed in the mass protests of the winter 2011–2012, was fueled, the article seeks to define whether the uses of revolutionary history have played a role in consolidation of those dissatisfied with the regime. Focusing on the protest artworks created by collectives Vojna and Pussy Riot, the article answers the question by using and developing Klas-Göran Karlsson’s ideas on functionality of the uses of history. The results show that although many recipients understood the meaning conveyed by the artists, the uses of revolutionary history were most of the time dysfunctional due to the existence of “antirevolutionary consensus” in the Russian society. The article offers new answers to the question as to why the protest art failed to engage the Russian society.

Interlopers by choice, or interlopers by circumstance? Alexey Navalny and alternative journalistic projects in contemporary autocratic Russia

In February 2024, Russian opposition activist Alexey Navalny died in a Western Siberian prison aged just 47. Known as a vocal opposition leader in Russia in the 2010s, he was regularly trying to be elected but also organised the largest mass anti-establishment and anti-corruption protests in Russia before his untimely death. Deprived of access and coverage in the Russian mainstream media, Navalny and his associates established their own media channels, including personal YouTube channels and online media outlets such as Navalny LIVE to avoid censorship and expose the corruption and abuses of power of high-ranking officials in Russia. However, at the same time, Navalny and his colleagues cannot be labelled as ‘journalists’ in a normative sense. They were not professional journalists and had not gone through the processes of journalistic socialisation, but rather ‘tried on’ journalistic roles and investigative journalism practices to expose corrupt elites. In this sense, Navalny and his team can be called (explicit) interlopers who adopt journalistic identities and force a reconsideration of what journalists are and journalism is. In this study, we look at the case of Navalny and his team and their investigative documentaries on YouTube. We relate his practice to the journalistic concept of (explicit) interlopers, analyse how their unique and alternative journalistic project has diversified a largely monopolised and authoritarian Russian public sphere, and propose extending the notion of interlopers by differentiating between interlopers by choice, and interlopers by circumstance.

A hidden form of mass event: the law, politics, and practice of single pickets in Russia

ABSTRACT Single picketing, in which an individual stands in public holding a sign, emerged as a new form of protest in Russia in recent years under the context of increased political repression, and is the last form of protest that does not require prior authorization from authorities. In this article, I develop an understanding of single pickets by examining the evolving dynamics between the state and protestors. I argue that the current practice of single pickets developed as the result of increasingly harsh legal restrictions on public gatherings, and while the Russian state seeks to manage public political action through legal means, protesters continuously find ways to work around or exploit loopholes in the law, in turn shaping new forms of legality in daily life. My analysis is based on tracing the evolution of the laws governing single pickets and online ethnography I conducted during 2020–2021.

Protest and repression on social media: Pro-Navalny and pro-government mobilization dynamics and coordination patterns on Russian Twitter

In this study, we examine connective protest mobilization and suppression during the 2021 protests in Russia. We use time series analysis to study the dynamic interplay between the pro-Navalny movement and pro-government countermovement on Twitter, complemented by network analyses of co-retweeting networks to assess the movements’ coordination patterns. Findings show that pro-Navalny accounts were more active and coordinated within more centralized Twitter networks than pro-government accounts. Contrarily, the pro-government camp employed preventive communication tactics and coordinated in more clustered networks. Granger causality tests reveal that pro-Navalny tweeting activity triggered increased pro-regime reaction during the largest protests on 23 January and 21 April, whereas pro-government tweeting activity caused the escalation of pro-Navalny reaction during the 14 February protests. Both sides’ tweeting activity decreased after the February protests, presumably due to external repression. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of online mobilization and coordination strategies via social media in authoritarian contexts.

Alexandar MIHAILOVIC, The Mitki and the Art of Postmodern Protest in Russia

Alexandar MIHAILOVIC, The Mitki and the Art of Postmodern Protest in Russia

Monitoring of Labor Protests: Results and Directions of Analysis

The article describes the methodology and analytical capabilities of the “Monitoring of labor protests in Russia”. The information base is Internet messages about labor protests, which contain the necessary information and are first entered into a textual and then into a quantitative database. The monitoring has been functioning for 15 years and has accumulated information about 4.5 thousand protests. The structure of the Monitoring is briefly described, the main concepts and variables that allow analyzing the protest movement in several directions at once.The first direction is linear data analysis, which allows obtaining the most general data on the number of protests and their most important characteristics. Another direction is the calculation of indices, which make it possible to obtain comparable and relative indicators, which make it possible to overcome the heterogeneity of the compared objects.Another important type of analysis is the long-term dynamics of protests based on the identification of trends and the development of criteria for its assessment: determining the turning points of trends from growth to decline and vice versa, as well as the intensity of trends at each stage.An actor-transactional analysis launched in 2016, which determines the number of actors involved in labor protests (35 types of actors are identified) and types of interactions (transactions) between them, both outgoing (actor activity) and incoming (actor authority). Based on these indicators, the index of significance of each actor is calculated, which is monitored in dynamics. This makes it possible to understand the role institutional and non-institutional actors play in the settlement of protests.

“I Felt Frightened and Then I Started Singing”: Songs at Russian Protest Actions

This article explores the role of songs in Russian protests. Data are drawn from ethnographic observations made at protests held between 2015 and 2022, mostly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as part of the project, “Monitoring Contemporary Folklore,” based at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. The authors consider materials from 240 protests. Viewing protests as an act of communication, the article analyzes the circumstances for song performances and suggests a hypothesis for songs’ communicative goals. The article additionally demonstrates how song choice changes from common 1980’s protest songs to new tracks that gained later popularity. The article demonstrates how song production depends on the types of protests and the levels of participant engagement.

Historical consciousness and the consolidation of the opposition: uses of the history of revolution and dissent in Russian protest art, 2008–2012

ABSTRACT The protests against election fraud in Russia in winter 2011–2012 were the first in the post-Soviet period that were attended by a united opposition, and attracted hundreds of thousands of previously apolitical citizens. This article seeks to explain mass participation in the protests by focusing on uses of the history of revolution and dissent in Russian protest art. The article investigates whether a common historical consciousness, which could have made it possible to unify previously fragmented opposition and mobilize previously apolitical citizens, was manifested in protest artworks created by artists with differing political ideologies. The conclusion is that the official historical narrative promoted by the state – of a spiritual unity between a strong state and the people – was challenged and undermined by protest artists, who have characterized Russian history as a continuous struggle between an oppressive state and civil society. This finding indicates that a common historical consciousness was manifested in protest artworks.

Authoritarian media and foreign protests: evidence from a decade of Russian news

ABSTRACT The proliferation of protests around the world poses challenges for authoritarian media outlets. While censoring news about protests abroad may push audiences to alternative news sources, their coverage could motivate citizens to take to the streets at home. To explore whether and how authoritarian media outlets cover foreign protests, we leverage evidence from Russia. Combining evidence from a decade of news coverage with protest-event data, we show that far from censoring news on protests abroad, authoritarian outlets afford them extensive coverage. The coverage of foreign protests, however, declines on days of large Russian protests, when the costs of encouraging mobilization are potentially greater. We also show that authoritarian media selectively use protests abroad, especially those in democracies, to convey the image of citizen activism as threatening and disorderly. Findings, which speak to research on authoritarian propaganda, have implications for scholarship on protest management and authoritarian resilience.

Using social-media-network ties for predicting intended protest participation in Russia

Previous research has highlighted the importance of network structures in information diffusion on social media. In this study, we explore the role of an individual’s social network structure in predicting publicly announced intention of protest participation. Using the case of ecological protests in Russia and applying machine learning to publicly-available VKontakte data, we classify users into protesters and non-protesters. We have found that personal social networks have a high predictive power allowing user classification with an accuracy of 81%. Meanwhile, using all public VKontakte data, including memberships in activist groups and friendship ties to protesters, we were able to classify users into protesters and non-protesters with a higher accuracy of 96%. Our study contributes to the political-participation literature by demonstrating the importance of personal social networks in predicting protest participation. Our results suggest that in some cases, the likelihood of participating in protests can be significantly influenced by elements of a personal-network structure, inter alia, network density and size. Further explanatory research should be done to explore the mechanisms underlying these relationships.

“Anti-Regime Influentials” Across Platforms: A Case Study of the Free Navalny Protests in Russia

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 has put the future of the Russian opposition further at stake. The new limitations towards political, internet, and press freedoms have led to a severe disintegration of the anti-regime movement in Russia, including its leaders like Alexey Navalny. Digital platforms had previously hosted anti-Kremlin narratives online and played a role in the facilitation of Russian anti-regime protests. The latest scalable anti-regime rallies to date were the Free Navalny protests, caused by the imprisonment of Navalny in 2021. Digital platforms strengthened the voice of the Russian regime critics; however, their growing visibility online caused further suppression in the country. To understand this paradox, we ask<em> </em>which main anti-regime communicators were influential in the protests’ discussions on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, and how platform features have facilitated their influence during the Free Navalny protests. We develop a multi-platform methodological workflow comprising network analysis, social media analytics, and qualitative methods to map the Russian anti-regime publics and identify its opinion leaders. We also evaluate the cultures of use of platforms and their features by various Russian anti-regime communicators seeking high visibility online. We distinguish between contextual and feature cultures of platform use that potentially aid the popularity of such actors and propose to cautiously confer the mobilisation and democratisation potential to digital platforms under growing authoritarianism.

Quantitative Analysis of Russian Protests: Regional Authorities and Regions of Authority (2018–2021)

ABSTRACT The authors offer an original dataset of 4,909 protests across Russia in 2018–2021. The study shows that political and pro-democratic protests do not constitute the majority of protests in Russia, their agenda being mainly concentrated on social and economic issues at the local level. Second, the agenda, not geographic proximity, determines the spread of protests, and a political agenda results in faster dissemination. Third, the main organizer of protests is the Communist Party and not non-systemic parties. Fourth, Moscow and Saint Petersburg lag behind at least three other Russian regions in terms of the strength of local protest activity.

Broadcasting Messages via Telegram: Pro-Government Social Media Control During the 2020 Protests in Belarus and 2022 Anti-War Protests in Russia

ABSTRACT What is the role of digital media in contentious politics? On the one hand, digital media plays a central role in informing the public and organizing political movements. On the other hand, it has become a valuable tool for digital repression in authoritarian states. This study concentrates on the patterns of digital media use by pro-government actors in times of nationwide protests in autocracies. It analyzes how pro-government actors establish control over political discourse and information flow online compared to pro-opposition and neutral actors. I argue that, following the increased use of social media by opposition actors during social movements, the state will seek to establish its presence online, attempt to reach larger audiences, and endeavor to frame political issues in a beneficial light to reinforce political control. I use the cases of the 2020–21 protests in Belarus and the 2022 anti-war protests in Russia and employ text-as-data computational methods to analyze communication patterns on public Telegram channels. The results show that pro-government channels in Belarus and Russia followed the protest paradigm and framed protests as illegal, unauthorized activities that cause chaos and disorder. The pro-opposition Telegram channels in Belarus reached a larger audience than pro-state or neutral channels. In contrast, pro-government and neutral channels in Russia dominated the Telegramsphere. These contrasting patterns of Telegram channel activity and popularity suggest that the Russian pro-government online actors are more sophisticated in controlling and manipulating the communication space than Belarusian pro-state actors.

НЕКОТОРЫЕ ЦЕННОСТНЫЕ ОРИЕНТАЦИИ ПРОТЕСТАНТОВ-УКРАИНЦЕВ УРАЛЬСКОГО РЕГИОНА

This article is based on the results of field studies of members of Protestant religious organizations operating in the Southern, Middle and Polar Urals. Ukrainians represent the largest ethnic group among the Protestants of the studied regions, having a "foreign" origin; studies have revealed that the largest ethnic group that is the bearer of Protestantism in the Urals are Russians. The purpose of this work is to determine the value orientations of Ukrainians-members of the Protestant communities of the Ural region, the results of processing field materials are presented in comparison with data on Russian Protestants. Research evidence shows that more than half of both groups are not prosperous theologians. However, there are more potential “heroes of faith” who are ready to endure various difficulties and who do not consider achieving success in life an indispensable attribute of Christian life among Ukrainian respondents. In our opinion, this fact is explained by the fact that Protestantism historically has more rooted traditions in Ukraine than in Russia - members of the Protestant formations of the Ural regions who were born and lived for some time in Ukraine, having arrived in the Russian Federation, could bring with them more evangelically oriented values.

Ready to protest? Explaining protest potential in Russian regional capitals

ABSTRACT The 2021 urban political protests in Russia in support of Alexei Navalny have swept the country, beginning in the Far East and reaching Moscow. They, however, displayed large variation in the number of protesters taking to the streets in the country’s regional capitals. While the immediate driver of urban protests is usually a political event or a decision of authorities, the willingness to protest accumulates before that, creating protest potential. To explain why some Russian regional capitals accumulate protest potential while others do not, we perform Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 53 cases. It reveals that a high share of young and educated people and the presence of organized civil society, but not the Internet consumption or the performance of city authorities, are crucial for the accumulation of protest potential in Russian regional capitals. These findings advance our understanding of urban political potential in autocracies as well as of Russia’s political geography.

"Save the Children!": The Symbol of Childhood and (De)Legitimation of Power in Russian Protests, 2017–21

In 2017–21, the symbol of childhood became especially noticeable in the political life of Russia due to the participation of minors in protest activity and the involvement of the age factor in political rhetoric.

“The Defenders of Shiyes”: traditionalism as a mobilisation resource in a Russian protest camp

ABSTRACT Between August 2018 and January 2021, the Shiyes railway station in the Arkhangelsk region of Russia became the site of numerous protests against the construction of a landfill. At the core of the mobilisation was a protest camp near the construction site, where activists confronted the police and security guards. Through an analysis of self-made online narratives on the protest camp, this paper explores the framing strategies of the camp's daily routine and significant events. Paper demonstrates the incorporation of traditionalism as an ideological resource in the narratives on gender, spirituality, militarism, geographic identity, and postcolonialism.

Analysing Russian Reaction to 2021 U.S. Capitol Riots

On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. was attacked by a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump. More than 70 countries and international organisations expressed their concerns over the 2021 United States Capitol attack and condemned the violence. While governments around the world have expressed outrage and sadness over rioting that engulfed the U.S. Capitol, some media (for example, VOA) reported that ‘Russia took a different view -- namely, vindication with a bit of gloating’ under the headline ‘As US Reels From Capitol Violence, Russia Enjoys the Show’. What was Russia’s reaction to the events in Washington? Russian high-ranking politicians responses to the U.S. Capitol rioters were widely quoted in English-speaking media. But the angle offered for foreign audiences did not always coincide with the media narrative developed for domestic consumption. This paper examines media interpretation of the U.S. riots which was offered by the Russian media for Russian-speaking audiences. The paper follows the discourse of pro-Kremlin media during the period of 1 month after the protests began, analysing discursive frames which represented different interpretations of the events, particularly within the context of comparing the suppression of opposition protests in Russia with the prosecution of the U.S. Capitol rioters.

Studying the dynamics of labor protests: the experience of using linear approximation method

In article we propose a method for the analysis of long time series data of the Monitoring of Labor Protests. This database has been accumulating data on labor protests in Russia since 2008. During 156 months data were collected on 3,951 protests by Russian workers. The article describes the need to control labor protests, the features of the current legal regulation of labor conflicts. The peculiarity of the Russian situation is that the state bodies register only “legal” strikes, ignoring the numerous protest actions of workers undertaken in other forms. Therefore, it is necessary to study their dynamics in order to identify trends that are not visible using conventional analysis. The main difficulty in identifying trends is the high variability of the source data. The article proposes a method for smoothing data and the rate of change of the smoothed function at each point, which makes it possible to find criteria for determining periods of growth and decline in the protest indicator. This makes it possible to calculate periods, their duration, intensity, average rate of growth or decline. In addition to analyzing the overall dynamics, the proposed method allows to study subsamples, for example, of different sectors, and compare them obtaining comparable estimates. The article compares three sectors – industry, transport and healthcare – that accounted for 75% of all protest actions of workers in 2020.

Протестные настроения и уровень жизни населения России: краткий эмпирический анализ

The article provides an empirical analysis of the protest activity of the population of Russia, starting from the collapse of the USSR, the formation of independent states in the post-Soviet space and up to the present time (December 2021). With the exception of recent protests, all other actions had political subjectivity in the form of both right-wing and left-wing collective actors. At the same time all significant protests in modern Russia were well articulated, but, as a rule, were not supported by representatives in the federal or regional executive power. The author notes that the media coverage of the right-wing protests was minimal and exposed the protesters in a negative perspective (in state media). Media coverage of the left-wing protests was also minimal and predominantly neutral. The author attempts to analyze the protests in modern Russia empirically in relation to the standard of living and presents the fact that political protest in Russia can be both directly and inversely related to the standard of living of the population. At the same time, the direct link (the higher the standard of living, the higher the protest activity) usually reflects a protest based on the values of self-expression, and the feedback (the lower the standard of living, the higher the protest activity) reflects the protest based on the values of survival. Using the terminology of R. Inglehart and co-authors, which they used for the World Values Survey, we can conclude that the right-wing protests are based on the values of self-expression and the priority of the secular social order, while the left-wing protests are based on the values of survival and the priority of the traditional social order. The latter include the protests of the fall and winter of 2021. The article proposes systemic solutions that will allow effective work with the protest moods of the Russian population if the standard of living of Russian citizens will show a steady increase.