Putin Regime Research Articles

Russia in the politics of South Caucasus countries after 2022

The research question is how national governments and civil societies reflect Russian involvement in the decision-making process of South Caucasus countries in 2022–2024? The structure of the research includes two sections: 1) Strategic interests of the countries of the South Caucasus and Russia in 2022–2024; 2) Changing the role of Russia in the South Caucasus in 2022–2024. In result of the research it was revealed that opting for a policy of normalization Georgia cannot renounce its territory (Abkhazia and South Ossetia). Azerbaijan has been the most consistent among the Caucasian countries in challenging Russian hegemony in the region. This trend intensified after the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine: Azerbaijan increased humanitarian aid to Ukraine; pro-Ukrainian sympathies in Azerbaijani society were expressed through a number of leading media outlets that openly supported Kyiv. Baku unilaterally reviewed the ceasefire agreement - 2020, mediated by Russia. Amid the international isolation of the Kremlin, Azerbaijan began to play a much larger role for Russia. Baku is important link in the chain of diplomatic and economic ties of Putin's regime. Russia tries to maintain productive relations with Baku, even at the expense of its long-time ally Armenia. Yerevan revises its foreign policy, favouring a pro-Western vector. In Yerevan, the pro-Russian opposition organized rallies against the current government. Moscow and Baku both gained mutual benefits: Russia destabilized the situation in Armenia, and Azerbaijan restored its territorial integrity. However, these actions of Moscow struck at its influence in the region, marginalizing Russia and its "guarantees." The Caucasus provides a clear example of Russia's inability to continue playing the role of a major power: it simply lacks the strength and means.

Putin’s Ideological State

Russian President Vladimir Putin is often seen and characterised merely as a venal thug. To deal with him effectively, however, it is important to understand that he has a genuine, if misguided, ideology. The Kremlin has not merely composed, disseminated and imposed an official ideology on Russian society as a means of controlling the masses and concealing the Putin regime’s corruption. Ideology founded on grand ideas about Russia is central to Putin’s ruling philosophy. From the outset, his project was authoritarian with totalitarian intentions that have been realised through progressive political radicalisation. For Putin, Russia’s greatness is an end in itself and the highest attainment of the state and the Russian people. It is prudent to assume that Russia is preparing for major war with the West.

Memoria dislocata. Svetlana Boym, Marija Stepanova e la poetica nella Russia post-sovietica

Post-Soviet literature and theoretical reflection constitute an elective place for the elaboration of memory; the reflection of Svetlana Boym (starting exemplary from her work on Nabokov) and the poetic work of Marija Stepanova between poetry, prose and essays are the subject of these notes, which pay particular attention to the dislocation of memory as a reactivation of history in the double emergency of condition specific to the post-memory generation and the erasure of history by the Putin regime.

Dissecting Putin’s regime ideology

ABSTRACT Does the Putin regime have an ideology? This question has attracted renewed attention since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Some scholars claim that the war is directly linked to the Putin regime’s ideological aspirations to restore Russia’s greatness and challenge the West internationally, while others argue that contemporary regimes in the “Putinist mold” have limited need for ideology and use wars instrumentally for survival purposes rather than messianic aspirations. In this paper we will, first, review arguments pro and contra ideology under the Putin regime and identify existing gaps in such literature: definitional ambiguity, conflation of concepts of totalitarianism and ideology, overfocusing on ideal types of ideology, and so forth. Second, we will offer operationalizable metrics against which the ideology is measured: coherence of ideological repertoire, temporal consistency, elite commitment, codification, indoctrination, internalization, and futuristic vision. This paper finds that the current Putin regime checks most of the ideological boxes (even if it has not necessarily always been the case historically). Lastly, we will conclude by discussing the implications of our findings to the analysis of contemporary autocracies.

Who Trusts Russia? Members of Parliament (MPs') Support for Putin's Government and Multilateralism

This article examines the ambivalent stance of Latin American governments towards Russia's actions in Ukraine. Using Proyecto Élites Parlamentarias de la Universidad de Salamanca (PELA‐USAL) data, it explores ideological self‐placement, Putin's approval and alliance preferences among Latin American Members of Parliament, highlighting the influence of anti‐imperialism and multilateralism on their international alignments and support for Russia.

The civilization state in the war against Ukraine

ABSTRACT Do considerations of civilization play a role in the Russian aggression against Ukraine? This study starts from the assumption that the conflict in Ukraine cannot be fully explained by the arguments of John Mearsheimer, the main representative of the so-called offensive realist school of international relations theory, who argues that the Russian invasion is driven by fear of NATO’s eastward expansion. The author challenges this dominant explanatory framework, arguing that we need to dig deeper to understand Putin’s intentions. The paper focuses on the role of the “civilizational state” created by the Putin regime and analyzes the role of its guiding ideology, Eurasianism. The author concludes that the war in Ukraine must be interpreted in the context of the confrontation between the West and Russia, and that this development cannot be understood without taking into account the specific logic and offensive nature of the Russian civilization state.

Imperism as political nomos in Russia and beyond

ABSTRACT This article proposes the concept of ‘imperism’ as an analytical tool apt to describe political processes in Putin’s Russia and beyond. Imperism denotes an ontological orientation, or nomos (the term derives from theories of religion and politics by Berger and Schmitt), that undergirds a plurality of civic positions, informs policy, and fundamentally casts imperialness as a political entity’s normal, desirable state. Russia’s imperist nomos shall be explored in its key dimensions, including cosmology, authority, sociology, and aesthetics. However, imperism’s analytical purchase is not limited to the Russian case. In particular, this paper considers the merits of this category vis-à-vis an array of related but distinct concepts: imperialism, authoritarianism, fascism, nationalism, and irredentism. On those grounds, it will be argued that Putinist Russia’s military adventurism manifests a peculiar, imperist form of imperialism; that the Putin regime, albeit hard to categorise, appears to share an imperist nomos with historical fascisms; and that imperism’s ultimate scope exceeds that of nationalist irredentism. The paper ends with a reflection on the advantageous epistemological potentialities of imperism as a category.

The Motives of the Russian War on Ukraine: Corruption, Empire, Philosophy, Raison d’état and Religion

This article examines the motives for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The topic is explored through five principles developed by Kenneth Burke to analyse motives: act, scene, agent, agency and purpose. The major claim is that the war is being waged to ensure the longevity of the Putin regime and so allow the corrupt and power-hungry political elite to retain their positions. The kleptocratic state is kept afloat by means of waging war only through a system which can implicate wealthy and powerful individuals in serious crimes at any moment, suppresses dissent and produces expansive propaganda for the broader population. This war is a result of the privatisation of the political state and its deliberate transformation into the state of nature, which poses a threat not only to Ukraine, but to Russia itself and the entire world.

Russia`s war on Ukraine: from ontological insecurity to postmodern neo-totalitarianism1

This paper explores in the multifaceted reasons behind Russia’s offensive against Ukraine in 2022, going beyond conventional explanations of geopolitical struggle and the Putin regime’s fear of democratization. This essay primarily explores the less-explored notion that war is an intrinsic component of Vladimir Putin’s project for Russia. This paper argues that the war in Ukraine served not only as a strategic maneuver to gain domestic support and bolster Putin’s regime but also as a vehicle for advancing Putin’s imperial vision. To understand why Kremlin act as it acts, we need to examine the ideological foundations that have been instrumental in shaping Russian society’s perception of Ukraine. Furthermore, we explore here how the war in Ukraine has expedited significant societal changes in Russia, potentially paving the way for the regime’s collapse and the restructuring of the Russian state.

Beyond Cronyism: Local Governance and Welfare Provision by Large Companies in Russian Monotowns

In the 2000s, rather than choosing between abandonment and restructuring, Russian authorities opted to maintain the socio-economic status quo in monotowns, an important source of support for the Putin regime. Yet, this status quo is not a given equilibrium; it needs constant maintenance through cooperation between state and business actors, especially under the severe financial constraints of regional and local budgets. This single case study explores how and why local authorities and large companies cooperate in monotowns to provide public goods at the nexus of vertical pressures and horizontal incentives. We show that public goods are produced through resource pooling in a network-like cooperation between public and private actors.

European radical left foreign policy after the invasion of Ukraine: shifts in assertiveness towards Russia

ABSTRACT The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted a closer examination of parties’ attitudes towards the Putin regime. While research has examined the connections of the EU's far-right with Russia, less attention has been given to the stances of Radical Left Parties (RLPs). We close this gap by analysing Roll Call Votes (RCVs) in the European Parliament. Our findings indicate that RLPs displayed the lowest levels of assertiveness towards Russia before 2022, being even less assertive than other Eurosceptic groups. RLPs significantly increased their assertiveness after the invasion, bringing them closer to the EP mainstream. However, some divergence in assertiveness towards Russia existed within the RLPs before 2022 and remains relevant after the invasion, with the Traditional/Communist parties standing closer to Russia than radical New Left/Democratic Socialist parties.

Crisis bargaining, domestic politics and Russia's invasion of Ukraine

How do domestic political considerations constrain or enable the initiation of interstate wars? We answer this question in the context of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While prominent theories predict that domestic constraints reduce the likelihood of conflict, we show how structural features of Putin's regime rendered these concerns moot. Fighting was not likely to shift the domestic distribution of power favorably for Putin, although invading stood to enrich certain domestic groups and Putin himself. Instead, the invasion is more consistent with evidence that Putin perceived Ukraine to be bluffing, or expected fighting to yield pro-Russia shifts in Ukrainian domestic politics.

Gender systems in the Putin autocracy.

Over the last 23 years, Russian President Vladimir Putin's autocracy has revealed a set of interlocking gender systems that have come to the fore particularly vividly since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. How, this article asks, have the masculinist cultural and political practices of the Putin regime undermined democratic practices and engagement broadly speaking? How have they organized Russian state and society in ways that have led to today's war in Ukraine with its massive destruction, violence, and brutality? And have there been earlier signals that should have warned observers that this regime might undertake such a war of aggression? Drawing on public, mass media data, this article analyzes the gendered structures of power in Russia that have contributed to the degeneration of democracy in three main areas: (1) male-on-male domination in discourse and practice that supports Putin's personal rule and emasculates his enemies; (2) the elevation of male power clans, including the President's personal praetorian guard and the Russian private military companies; and (3) the overall taming and emasculation of the Russian Parliament combined with the elevation of tough women deputies, whom I call the Baba Commissars. These female MPs support the President's domination by creating an appearance of a threatening outside world that needs to be kept at bay. At the same time, they support a neo-traditional gender order with women managing the house under the direction of the patriarchal male leader.

Authoritarian Sovereignization: Russia’s Way out of the Council of Europe

Abstract Russia’s war against Ukraine and departure from the Council of Europe (CoE) in 2022 raises numerous questions about the effect of norm-diffusion in wider Europe. While inclusion in the CoE has provided litigation opportunities for Russian citizens, the process of “sovereignization” pursued by the regime has brought Russia into a downward spinning spiral of authoritarian illiberalism. This study discusses expectations derived from the hybrid regime model (containment of the domestic opposition as a driver towards full-blown authoritarianism) and from spiral theories of human rights compliance; it argues that the Putin regime has sought to seal Russia off from normative pressures from international organizations in pursuit of sovereign norms and values, and construed a separate legal space aimed at maintaining authoritarian rule indefinitely.

Inequality and social stratification in Russia during the Putin regime: From market transition to war on Ukraine

AbstractThe collapse of the USSR in late 1991 inspired social science research on levels, patterns, and trends in inequality within Russia, due to theoretical interest in how market transition affects social stratification. The start of the Putin regime in 2000 marked a new era in Russia's post‐Soviet political economic trajectory: in contrast to the 1990s, the economy first took off, then stagnated, while the state rolled back institutions of democracy and civic freedoms. In short, Russia became a consolidated market economy under authoritarian rule. In this context research has continued to produce insights into social stratification. The labor market featured high levels of employment but with downward wage flexibility, modest decreases in earnings inequality, and persistent returns to education, gender wage gaps, and locality‐based differences. Waves of labor migration to Russia, resurgent traditional gender norms, shrinking population, housing inequality, health disparities, and a small contingent of ultra‐rich represent additional noteworthy developments. Although market transition is no longer an intriguing theoretical lens through which to view social stratification in Russia, the topic nonetheless holds broader theoretical interest because inequality became closely intertwined with Russia's political economy, social policies, and geopolitical actions, including those that culminated in Putin's decision to invade Ukraine.

From “Living Constitutionalism” to “Zombie Apocalypse”. Valery Zorkin, the Constitutional Court and Russian Authoritarianism

Abstract The 2020 constitutional amendments marked a turning point for Russian constitutionalism. The Constitution finally lost its limiting function and the Constitutional Court lost significant power. The long-serving Chairman of the Russian Constitutional Court, Valery Zorkin, however, remained in power and continues to guarantee authoritarian legality and approval for Putin through favorable rulings, his theory of state and law, and support for the constitutional amendments in 2020. Over the years, Zorkin has adapted to the increasing authoritarianism of the Putin regime. This is all the more remarkable given that Zorkin was a strong defender of legalism and opposed Boris Yeltsin’s power grab in 1993. The figure of Zorkin can help us explain the development of Russian constitutionalism during the last 30 years and the poses questions for comparative constitutional law.

Russia – the “True Europe” or a “Unique Civilization”?: Towards a Genealogy of two Post-Soviet Ideas

ABSTRACT “Russia as the true Europe” has become a popular idea in Russian political discourse and ideology production. However, it conflicts with another dominant commonplace idea: “Russia as non-Western” or “Russia as a unique, distinct civilization.” Yet “Russia as the true Europe” is an idea that has circulated frequently, especially since the conservative turn of the Putin regime from 2012 onwards. Here, Russia is represented as the defender of “true Christian values,” whereas the West has gradually abandoned this common ground. One key political thinker who has been instrumental in disseminating such ideas in post-Soviet Russia is Natal´ja Naročnickaja, who has developed this argument referring to classical Slavophile writings of the mid-nineteenth century. Slavophilism is a movement known for postulating a firm antithesis – a civilizational divide – between Russia and the West, but they also understood this conflict as having emerged historically. This article explores the genealogy of the idea of “Russia as the true Europe” by analysing the writings of Ivan Kireevskij and Aleksej Chomjakov. By implication, it makes also a contribution to the history of “Russia as a unique civilization,” since it shows that there exists a tension in classical Slavophilism itself in seeing Russia both as Europe and non-Europe. Moreover, it demonstrates that despite apparent similarities between Slavophile thought and contemporary ideas there are significant discontinuities between them.

Przemiany polityczno-ustrojowe w Federacji Rosyjskiej w okresie pierwszej prezydentury Władimira Putina (2000-2008) – zagadnienia wybrane

Legal-political changes in the Russian Federation during the first presidency of Vladimir Putin, covering the years 2000-2008, are the subject of the article. The study first focuses on the strengthening of executive power, both at the central and regional levels, consolidating the power camp and shaping the political system of the state. In the period under analysis, the powers of the President of the Russian Federation were increased, the Federation Council was weakened, control over the regions was strengthened, and a number of rights and freedoms of citizens were limited. In his actions, Putin relied on the power ministries and secured the loyalty of the State Duma and the oligarchs. The United Russia party became his political base. Putin’s political opponents and competitors were ruthlessly eliminated from political life. An analysis of the features of the political system of the Russian Federation indicates that it had become an authoritarian state.

CRUEL SPEECH:

This paper interrogates the official purveyance of exterminist rhetoric in Russia’s war on Ukraine, with a particular focus on state media discourse. Over decades, the Putin regime has constructed an overarching system of intertwined narratives about Ukraine, centred on historical and geopolitical fables and exhortations to violence, and conveyed via repetitive tropes and tones of speech. These are ritualistic semi-scripted televised discussions (“agitainment”) featuring state officials, hack journalists, and prowar scholars. This elaborate discursive spectacle models a sadistic affect and seems designed to crush empathy towards Ukrainian civilians and among Russia’s own citizens. Anthropological and critical discursive approaches to the circulation of utterance suggest avenues for analysing the impacts, obvious and subtle, of these rhetorical and aesthetic devices in the context of terror directed both internationally and domestically.

Russian Intelligentsia toward the Legal Nihilism. Reading the “Landmarks” (1909) and “Out of the Depth” (1918) after February 24, 2022

The aim of this paper is to re-read the criticism of the Russian intelligentsia, which was made by authors of Landmarks (“Vekhy”, 1909) and Out of the Depth (“Iz glubiny”, 1918), in the context of the support given to the Russian invasion on the Ukraine in 2022 by the large part of Russian intellectuals. Instead of perceiving the current “rapprochement” of the Russian intelligentsia to the Putin government as a kind of “aberration” and a departure from its “moral mission”, the author would like to show the arguments concerning long duration of the tradition of their acceptance of the anti-liberal and authoritarian course of the Russian government. This tradition was unveiled by such outstanding Russian liberals and religious thinkers as, among others: Nikolai Berdyaev, Petr Struve, Bogdan Kistyakovski, Iosif Pokrovsky and Sergei Kotlyarevsky. They believed that the susceptibility of the intelligentsia to revolutionary slogans was caused not only by hostility to the Old Regime, but by their instrumental attitude to the state and law. They claimed that the Russian intelligentsia had much more in common with the representatives of Tsarist autocracy than would result from the hostility felt towards it. A common feature of both was “legalnihilism” – a point of view that assumed a distrustful attitude towards rational law. The only way to overcome this distrust was therefore instilling Kant’s personalism and raising the authority of natural law among the broad strata of the Russian intelligentsia.