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No. 266
analyticalanalytical
digestdigest
8 April 2021
PREPARING FOR THE PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS OF 2021:
RUSSIAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY
russianrussian
German Association for
East European Studies
Research Centre
for East European Studies
University of Bremen
Center for
Security Studies
ETH Zurich
Institute for European,
Russian, and Eurasian Studies
The George Washington
University
www.css.ethz.ch/en/publications/rad.html
Center for
Eastern European Studies
University of Zurich
■ COMMENTARY
Fighting for Discursive Hegemony:
e Kremlin’s Foundation Is Shaking 2
By Mario Baumann
Foolproofing Putinism, or Why Mikhail
Mishustin Might Be One of the Most Ambitious
Prime Ministers in Recent Russian History 4
By Fabian Burkhardt (Leibniz Institute for East
and Southeast European Studies, Regensburg)
Fear and Loathing in Russia: Repressions as
a Tool of Kremlin’s Rule 6
By Vladimir Gel’man (European University at
St. Petersburg and University of Helsinki)
Elections 2021: Tense Atmosphere, Likely
Regime Victory, and Uncertain Policy
Outcomes 7
By Boris Ginzburg and Alexander Libman (both
Free University Berlin)
Before the Duma Elections, Russia is Moving
Forward with E-Voting.
Why, and With What Potential Consequences? 9
By Stas Gorelik (George Washington University /
Research Centre for East European Studies at the
University of Bremen)
Will Putin’s Regime Survive? 11
By Andreas Heinemann-Grüder (University
of Bonn and Bonn International Centre for
Conversion)
Strategies for Russia:
Avoiding a New Cold War 12
By David Lane (Cambridge University)
Citizen versus Strongman: Revival, Social
Class, and Social Decay in Russia’s Autocracy 13
By Tomila Lankina (London School of
Economics and Political Science)
e Economic Consequences of Autocracy 15
By Michael Rochlitz (University of Bremen)
Preparing for the Parliamentary Elections of
2021 16
By Andrei Semenov (Center for Comparative
History and Politics, Perm State University)
Information Wars, Opposition Coordination,
and Russia’s 2021 Duma Election 17
By Regina Smyth (Indiana University and
Woodrow Wilson Center)
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 2
COMMENTARY
Fighting for Discursive Hegemony: e Kremlin’s Foundation Is Shaking
By Mario Baumann
DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000477859
The backbone of Putin’s leadership has always been
unswerving support from a large part of the Rus-
sian population. Putin’s accession to office was accompa-
nied by an aura of a new beginning and youth, contrast-
ing with the disillusionment of the Yeltsin era and the
grim 1990s. After the swift economic upswing of Putin’s
first two terms, the leadership’s support has been largely
nourished by a narrative of external threat. e central-
ity of this narrative has been underlined by the recent
events surrounding Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. ese
events show, however, that the leadership is increasingly
having trouble maintaining that logic.
e Kremlin has reacted stridently to Western
accusations of the leadership’s complicity in the attack.
rough questioning, ridiculing and discrediting the
Western narrative, the Russian leadership has denied
any involvement in the case. It has attempted to turn
the tables and present Russia as the victim of an anti-
Russian conspiracy. According to this version of events,
Western governments are not only unwilling to cooper-
ate in establishing the truth; it has also been suggested
that the case was a staged operation (Lavrov 2021a),
a mass disinformation campaign (Deutsche Welle 2020)
resulting from anti-Russian hysteria (Russian Ministry
of Foreign Affairs 2020).
is storyline resonates with the ongoing accusa-
tions of non-credibility and double standards that the
Kremlin asserts against the West. e idea of the ‘out-
side enemy’ has become central to generating political
support. Yet, the question is to what extent the Kremlin
is actually successful in hegemonizing public discourse
with this narrative of the ‘besieged fortress’.
With regard to the Navalny case, data provided by
the Levada-Center (2020) draw a mixed picture. Out
of all respondents aware of the issue, 30% subscribe
to the idea of a staged operation and 19% believe the
poisoning to be a provocation by Western intelligence
services. Against these officially articulated narratives,
only 15% support the version suggested by Western
governments and institutions, namely that the incident
was an attempt by the Russian leadership to eliminate
a political opponent. Yet this interpretation of events
is supported by the biggest share of those aged 24 or
younger (34%). A similar picture emerges from polls
on the Russia-wide protests after Navalny’s detention in
January (Levada-Center 2021a). While feelings towards
protestors are generally mixed among respondents, sym-
pathy is especially high among the young and those rely-
ing on non-traditional media sources.
is illustrates that the Russian official rhetoric is
only partly successful in hegemonizing public discourse.
It seems to struggle particularly with the young, who
have no active memory of the instability of the pre-Putin
years and, through the internet and social media, are
most exposed to alternative narratives. While Putin’s
approval ratings are still high (Levada-Center 2021b),
they are nonetheless on an overall decline. e echo of
Navalny’s latest investigative video indicates that the
legitimacy of Putin as the protector of the Russian people
against a corrupt elite and the oligarchy might be shak-
ing (Levada-Center 2021c).
Responses: Increasing Hostility and
Repression
So far, the Kremlin’s response has been an ever more
aggressive stance against the West and increasing repres-
sion against political dissent. Russia’s fierce reactions to
Western accusations in the Navalny case have demon-
strated an unprecedented level of hostility, causing the
country’s already-strained relations with the EU to sink
to a new low.
e Kremlin’s rhetoric, however, not only discredits
the challenge of an alternative Western interpretation—
it also serves to legitimate a tougher stance at home,
thereby transferring internal dissent to the outside.
Navalny, so it goes, is an instrument of either the CIA
or German intelligence (Peskov 2020, Lavrov 2021b).
is rhetorically legitimises the hard course of action
against him, his team, and his supporters. e harsh
crackdown on protestors during the January events is
indicative of a growing authoritarian response to domes-
tic political challenges. Other signals include the recent
confrontation with Twitter, the suppression of opposi-
tional activities, and the tightening of the foreign agent
law, whose application has now been extended also to
non-registered entities and individuals.
For the leadership, these t wo sources of instability—
Western accusations and growing internal dissent—are
inextricably linked, since both cha llenge the authority of
the official narrative. By lumping together any form of
domestic political challenge with evil forces from abroad,
the Kremlin thus aims to kill two birds with one stone.
is strategy seeks to marginalise and discredit alterna-
tive interpretations from outside, to delegitimise dissent
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 3
within the country, and to justify the repressive mea-
sures taken to suppress those critics.
Implications for the EU’s Russia Policy
e EU ought to take the Kremlin’s besieged fortress
narrative into account when devising its policy approach
towards Russia. is narrative not only perpetuates the
political deadlock between Brussels and Moscow, but
also aids the latter in covering up the silencing of domes-
tic political dissent. Any policy must thus be evaluated
against what effects it induces within the country—
and especially for those the Kremlin has rhetorically
ostracised.
e Russian leadership’s defensive reaction to West-
ern accusations in the Navalny case has shown that
a pro-government public discourse is crucial for the Rus-
sian leadership to keep up the appearance of legitimacy
for its course of action. In response to the current crisis,
the EU should therefore first and foremost vocally insist
on the accountability of Russia’s leadership to its pop-
ulation. Human rights, democracy, and the rule of law
are values Russia openly committed to as a member of
multilateral institutions such as the Council of Europe,
the OSCE, and the United Nations. Firmly insisting on
this normative ground, the EU can argue with facts to
challenge the Kremlin’s deflecting rhetoric while at the
same time maintaining a basis for an inclusive vision
for Europe that in the long run keeps alive the possibil-
ity of rapprochement and normalization.
About the Author
Mario Baumann is reading for his PhD at the University of Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies (BSIS). In
his research he focuses on the interaction of interpretations in Russia and the European Union. In a recent study, he
analyses the discourse on information warfare in Russia–West relations.
References
• Deutsche Welle (2020): Russia accuses Germany of spreading misinformation on Navalny, 30.11.20: https://www.
dw.com/en/russia-accuses-germany-of-spreading-misinformation-on-navalny/a-55776770 (last access: 25.03.21).
•
Lavrov (2021a): Press conference with Sergey Lavrov [original text in Russian], 02.02.21: https://ww w.mid.
ru/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4550431?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE _
cKNonkJE02Bw&_101_INSTANCE_cKNonkJE02Bw_languageId=ru_RU (last access: 25.03.21).
•
Lavrov (2021b): Foreign Minister S ergey Lavrov’s interview with t he Solov yov Live YouTube cha nnel, 12.02 .21: https://
www.mid.ru/ru/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJWVmR/content/id/4570813?p_p_
id=101_INSTANCE_7OvQR5KJWVmR& _101_INSTA NCE_7OvQR5KJWVmR _languageId=en_GB (last
ac c e ss: 25.03.21).
• Levada-Center (2020): e poisoning of Alexei Navalny [original text in Russian], 24.12.20: https://www.levada.
ru/2020/12/24/chto-rossiyane-dumayut-ob-otravlenii-alekseya-navalnogo/ (last access: 25.03.21).
• Levada-Center (2021a): January protests [original text in Russian], 10.02.21: https://w w w.levada .ru/2021/02/10/
yanvarskie-protesty/ (last access: 25.03.21).
• Levada-Center (2021b): Approval ratings of the president [original text in Russian], 04.02.21: https://www.levada.
ru/2021/02/04/prezidentskie-rejtingi-i-polozhenie-del-v-strane/ (last access: 25.03.21).
• Levada-Center (2021c): ‘Putin’s Palace’ [original text in Russian], 08.02.21: https://www.levada.ru/2021/02/08/
film-dvorets-dlya-putina/ (last access: 25.03.21).
• Peskov (2020): Peskov said that Navalny’s accusations against Putin were inspired by the CIA, they are unaccept-
able [original text in Russian], 01.10.20: https://tass.ru/politika/9601643 (last access: 25.03.21).
• Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2020): Commentary of the Department of Information and Press of the
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the discrepancies and inconsistencies concerning the situation around
A. Navalny [original text in Russian], 25.09.20: https://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/
cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4350818 (last access: 25.03.21).
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 4
Foolproofing Putinism, or Why Mikhail Mishustin Might Be One of the
Most Ambitious Prime Ministers in Recent Russian History
By Fabian Burkhardt (Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, Regensburg)
DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000477859
R
ussian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has been
tacitly pressing ahead with an ambitious vision to
reshape public administration. e main purpose of
this advance is to foolproof the Russian state against
the drawbacks of the heavy-handed top–down mode of
governance of late Putinism, and to squeeze as much as
possible out of the stagnant Russian state while avoid-
ing any fundamental change.
e Meta-Reform: e Government’s
Coordination Center
“I think he will start with reforming public administra-
tion [gosupravlenie],” said Sberbank ’s German Gref on
16 January 2020, one day af ter Mishustin was appointed
prime minister. While Mishustin is best known for the
digital transformation of Russia’s tax service, his vision
as PM is more ambitious: Mishustin did indeed launch
an administrative reform the scope of which is only com-
parable to the one initiated in 2003–2004. A so-called
“Coordination Center” was created on 22 February 2021,
and can be considered the centerpiece of this reform. It
is attached to the government’s in-house think tank, the
Analytical Center, and is headed by Deputy PM Dmi-
try Chernyshenko.
e idea goes back to 2015 when President Vladimir
Putin tasked Prime Minister Dmitrii Medvedev with
designing a specialized “project office”. e philosophy
behind this obscure “office” has been most clearly laid
out by Sberbank’s German Gref, who can be consid-
ered the founding father of what would later become
the Coordination Center.
Gref’s view might be summarized as follows: e
state of Russia’s economy is rotten. But before any mean-
ingful reforms can be launched, the quality and capacity
of the state’s public administration should be enhanced,
ideally with the help of big business: agile project man-
agement, performance measurement, and of course dig-
ital transformation. is meta-reform therefore would
need to tackle the vertical governance style characteris-
tic of the Russian state. And the archaic top–down sys-
tem would have to be replaced by modern public man-
agement practices such as performance management.
Gref is famous for having become infatuated with
PEMANDU, the “Performance Management and Deliv-
ery Unit” formed in 2009 to monitor Malaysia’s “Gov-
ernment Transformation Program”. On 30 June 2016,
Putin created the Presidential Council on Strategic
Development and Priority Projects, essentially a coor-
dination and monitoring group for the 2012 May dec-
rees. Presidential aide Andrei Belousov was, as the main
watchdog for the implementation of the 2012 May dec-
rees, appointed secretary of the Council. In parallel,
a department for project management was created
within the PM’s executive office [Apparat Pravitel’stva].
Even though there were major issues with the imple-
mentation of the 2012 May Decrees, they were to a la rge
degree repackaged into the 2018 National Projects, and
with the reappointment of the Medvedev government
after the 2018 presidential elections, the previous man-
agement structure of the May Decrees was mostly kept
intact. e reactivation of the State Council did not help
much to improve feedback mechanisms between the
center and the regions: in some spheres, such as salaries
for certain categories of state employees, most regions
even rolled back and fell behind the 2018 targets.
e reason why the Medvedev government had
to step down simultaneously on 15 January 2020 has
largely remained in the dark. Medvedev had been
increasingly seen as a hindrance for meta-reforming
the Russian state: with the National Projects, Russia
had its answer to the Malaysian Government Transfor-
mation Program in place, but a functioning “delivery
office” and performance management was largely absent.
While PEMANDU promised “big, fast results,” Med-
vedev played it small and slow.
e main question, of course, is whether Mishus-
tin’s elevation is simply yet another restructuring of the
executive without changing the bigger picture. Mishus-
tin at least appears to be motivated to act “big and fast”.
First, the federal executive will be shrunk by about
32,000 staff units, with cuts at the center of up to 5 per-
cent and in the regions of up to 10 percent of staff (mostly
by cutting currently vacant positions). By contrast, the
PM’s office is being expanded to 1.792 staff. More impor-
tantly, the PM’s office should move away from merely
servicing 61 government commissions and focus on
policy work instead: the PM’s office now mirrors the
Cabinet of Ministers, which should bolster its capabil-
ity to coordinate policy and solve impasses. e restruc-
turing of Russia’s sprawling 40 development institu-
tions, some of them under the roof of Igor Shuvalov’s
VEB (such as Skolkovo and Rosnano), should also be
seen in this context: while six of them will be liquidated
altogether, the functions of the others are meant to be
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 5
restructured in order to facilitate coordinated implemen-
tation of national development goals. Part of this reform
is not only an audit of key performance indicators for
the various developmental organizations and state cor-
porations, but also cuts to staff, salaries and privileges.
Second, the Coordination Council is not a subordi-
nate unit within the PM’s office as the project depart-
ment was, but rather a task force in its own right directly
under Deputy PM Chernyshenko. e statute defines
three main functions: incident management, priority
tasks, and special projects. Moreover, decisions by the
Center are obligatory for all federal executive bodies. In
short, the Coordination Council will become the gov-
ernment’s main troubleshooter. Last year, a predecessor
task force had to solve “incidents” relating to bonus pay-
ment arrears for doctors working with Covid-19 patients,
the provision of hot meals to pupils and the liquida-
tion of deficits with certain drugs. Among the priority
tasks, for example, is the coordination of government
support for Russia’s nine most economically depressed
regions. e main idea behind the Center is to alleviate
the drawbacks of top–down governance with more hor-
izontal project-based work across executive officials and
agencies. All of this should help to create an analytical
ecosystem that supersedes the usual information bar-
riers between vertically organized ministries and exe-
cutive agencies.
Mishustin’s “Social Networks” and Russia’s
Data-Driven Authoritarianism
One of the main challenges to making the Coordina-
tion Council work is “digital feudalism,” the more than
800 information systems within the executive with little
compatibility and the bureaucrats who collect and insert
(often manipulated) data into these systems. e pro-
posed solution relates to the “state as platform” idea pro-
posed by Aleksei Kudrin’s Center for Strategic Develop-
ment (CSR): such a data-driven state would serve as the
main integrator for seamless communication between
citizens, business and state executive bodies. But so far,
data, Russia’s “new oil,” remains “dirty oil”: In 2019,
the government approved the National System for Data
Management (NSUD) to synchronize hundreds of state
databases and create unified rules for the collection,
manipulation, storage and usage of this data. How-
ever, regional pilot projects have exposed major issues
with coordination among executive bodies with func-
tional overlap.
Much more successful is the public ser vices platform
Gosuslugi, which reached 126 million users by the end
of 2020, with 24 million having registered in that year
alone. Around 70 million Russians are verified users of
the Unified System for Identification and Authentica-
tion (ESIA) and are therefore entitled to use e-govern-
ment services fully online via Gosuslugi. By linking ver-
ified Gosuslugi user profiles with the manifold state data
bases in a unified data structure including between 20
and 60 categories of data on citizens, a “Digital Citizen
Profile” will increasingly allow the Russian government
to facilitate seamless data flows between the state, cit-
izens and business (first and foremost banks). is will
create abundant opportunities for citizen surveillance.
But the Coordination Center is as the government’s in-
house think tank also called upon to improve feedback
mechanisms with the population; to this end, the plat-
form Gosuslugi—Reshaem Vmeste (Let’s decide together)
is being introduced in all federal subjects. Linking cit-
izen complaints to e-government services in this way
does not only create an early-warning system for citizen
grievances, but is also a useful addition to the Krem-
lin’s Centers for Regional Management (TsUR), which
collect complaints about regional authorities on social
media. Research shows that this kind of digital par-
ticipatory governance is likely to increase votes for the
incumbent.
Increased presidential powers in the wake of the
2020 constitutional changes exacerbate the “bad gov-
ernance” associated with overcentralization and person-
alist rule. In the run-up to the long electoral cycle of the
2021 Duma elections and the 2024 presidential elec-
tions, Mishustin’s administrative tweaks are intended
to counterbalance the governance risks that accompany
the zeroing of Putin’s presidential terms.
About the Author
Dr Fabian Burkhardt is a research fellow at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regens-
burg. Among his research interests are presidential and executive politics in authoritarian regimes with a regional focus
on the post-Soviet space, in particular Russia and Belarus.
An earlier version of this article was published online via Riddle Russia at https://ww w.ridl.io/en/foolproofing-putinism/
Further Reading
•
Burkhardt, Fabian. “Institutionalising Authoritarian Presidencies: Polymorphous Power and Russia’s Presiden-
tial Administration" Europe-Asia Studies 73.3 (2021): 472–504, https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2020.1749566.
• Burkhardt, Fabian. “Institutionalizing Personalism: e Russian Presidency after Constitutional Changes" Rus-
sian Politics 6.1 (2021): 50 –70, https://doi.org/10.30965/24518921-00601004.
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 6
Fear and Loathing in Russia: Repressions as a Tool of Kremlin’s Rule
By Vladimir Gel’man (European University at St. Petersburg and University of Helsinki)
DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000477859
S
ince 2012, the Kremlin has relied upon extensive use
of selective political repressions vis-à-vis its rivals in
various forms. ese attacks have gone far beyond the
most infamous cases, the killing of Boris Nemtsov in
2015 and poisoning of Alexei Navalny in 2020. Every
instance of mass protest has faced Kremlin counter-
attacks, which have included overt intimidation, public
discrediting of critics, and persecution, harassment and
violent coercion of opposition activists and/or supporters.
e most recent wave of protests in January 2021, soon
after the arrest and imprisonment of Navalny, resulted
in detainment and arrest of thousands of participants
across the country, mostly in Moscow and St. Peters-
burg. What are the major features of these repressions,
and to what extent might they help to preserve Krem-
lin rule over time?
Political repressions under authoritarianism perform
both punitive and signaling functions. First and fore-
most, their immediate goal is punishment and (if pos-
sible) elimination of actual and/or potential challengers
to the regime. At the same time, the Russian govern-
ment pursues repressions (or threat thereof) aimed at
preventing the spread of public discontent towards anti-
regime mobilization and aversion of spread of organized
opposition across various segments of Russian society.
us, regime critics receive a strong signal about the
risks of unconventional behavior for their career and
well-being, and may be less willing to be involved in
anti-regime activism. To some extent, this approach to
political repressions resembles those in the late Soviet
Union, which in the 1960s pivoted from the use of mass
repressions to selective targeting of dissident activism,
a strategy which was able to contain it to a certain degree.
While the number of political prisoners in the Soviet
Union at that time never exceeded several hundred per-
sons, preemptive control and monitoring enabled the
Communist regime to avoid protest mobilization until
the years of perestroika. In a sense, this experience ser ves
as a role model for present-day Russia’s rulers.
According to comparative studies, the scope and
intensity of repressions towards regime opponents
depends upon a combination of three factors. First,
threat perceptions of rulers have forced them to rely
upon repressions even when the danger of overthrow
by dissenters is not very strong. Second, the previous
experience of successful use of repressions for curbing
protests is usually considered as an argument in favor
of further reliance on these tools. ird, as co-optation
and repressions serve as two sides of the same coin, eco-
nomic stagnation puts limits on the rewarding of loyal
active citizens by the regime, and contributes to increase
of sanctions for disloyalty. Russia’s recent experience fits
these arguments. e Kremlin’s narratives wildly exag-
gerated the threat of “color revolutions”, especially after
the 2014 regime change in Ukraine. During the first
wave of repressions, launched in 2012 after post-elec-
tion protests (the Bolotnaya Square case), some dozens
activists were imprisoned and several hundred fled Rus-
sia, quieting opposition activism for a while. From the
viewpoint of the Kremlin, this experience, alongside
vicious attacks on independent media and NGOs, was
quite successful, and encouraged the regime to crack
down harder during the next wave of protests during
the 2019 Moscow City Duma elections and later on in
2021. Finally, amid the stagnation of real incomes of
Russians in 2010s–2020s, the Kremlin was unwilling to
buy Russians’ loyalty and less inclined to offer enough
side payments for satellite parties such a s the KPRF. Also,
unlike in the 2000s, the Kremlin no longer expands the
pool of its supporters through support for loyalist youth
movements, NGOs, and the like.
e expansion of scope and intensity of repressions in
Russia recently developed in several directions. e list
of potential targets, initially limited to NGOs (labeled
as “foreign agents” and faced with many restrictions
and fines), extended to media and individuals as well as
other non-registered organized entities (such as regional
networks of Navalny’s headquarters), who faced even
more severe restrictions and fines. e repressive reg-
ulations in Russia went further to cover new territory,
such as “enlightenment activities”, which were consid-
ered by the Russian parliament (who proposed a new
bill aimed at their state licensing) as a dangerous chan-
nel of Western influence. Regulations of Internet and
social media with criminalization of “fake news” and
other forms of spread of unwanted information as well
as threats to switch off certain website and services for
Russian users also became tougher by the 2020s. Sec-
ond, punishment of protesters become more severe by
2021, as fines, typical for the 2010s, were replaced by
more arrests and criminal cases against activists. ird,
vested interests of the coercive apparatus of the Rus-
sian state, which expanded its size through building of
special anti-extremist departments in different agencies,
also played an important role in increasing the scope
of repressions, and instances of cases fabricated and/or
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 7
pushed by certain officials (such as the Network case or
the Yury Dmitriev affair) demonstrated this tendency.
Figure 1: The Scope of Arrests and Fines after Politi-
cal Protests in Moscow
Yea r Tot al
arrests in
person-
days
Tot al
nes in
million
Russian
roubles
Number of ad-
ministrative and
criminal cases
against pro-
testers in Mos-
cow—initiated
(complete d)
2017 (26
March –
26April)
591 7. 2 905 (759)
2019 (27 July –
27 August)
1,082 15. 7 2,466 (2,189)
2021 (23
January –
24February)
6,736 6.4 5,716 (3,751)
Source: https://www.proek t.media/research/statistika-arestov-mitingi/
As of yet, repressions have brought only partial suc-
cesses for the Kremlin. Punishments of activists curbed
opposition activism for a while, but they were not able
to eliminate protests completely. Signaling of repressions
in Russia in the atmosphere of fear and loathing faces
a rising discontent of Russians with the regime, espe-
cially among the Russian youth. ese contradictions
between popular demands for change and the regime’s
supply of preserving the political status quo at any cost
are likely to increase in the wake of the upcoming 2021
State Duma elections. Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s increa s-
ing over-reliance upon repressions as the major tool of its
rule is a risky game because of the great empowerment of
the coercive apparatus of the Russian state. In a number
of autocracies, similar tendencies have paved the way to
military coups against unpopular dictators who have lost
their legitimacy. To what extent Russia’s leadership will
be able to avert these risks remains to be seen.
About the Author
Vladimir Gel’man is Professor at the European University at St. Petersburg and the University of Helsinki. He is the
author of Authoritarian Russia: Analyzing Post-Soviet Regime Changes (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015) and has
been published in Democratization, Europe-Asia Studies, Post-Soviet Affairs, and other journals.
References
• Dixon R., 2021, Inside Russia’s Mass Arrests: Claims of Beatings, reats, and ‘War’ against Rights Monitors,
Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russia-navalny-protesters-abuses/2021/02/26/
c5d8856c-6aef-11eb-a66e-e27046e9e898_story.html
•
Gel’man V., 2016, e Politics of Fear: How Russia’s Rulers counter their Rivals, Russian Politics, https://doi.
org/10.1163/24518921- 00101002
• Rogov K., 2018, e Art of Coercion: Repressions and Repressiveness in Putin’s Russia, Russian Politics, https://
doi.org /10.1163/2451-8921-00302001
Elections 2021: Tense Atmosphere, Likely Regime Victory, and Uncertain
Policy Outcomes
By Boris Ginzburg and Alexander Libman (both Free University Berlin)
DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000477859
1 Kobak, D. (2021). Excess mortality reveals Covid’s true toll in Russia. Significance, 18(1), 16-19.
2 https://www.forbes.ru/biznes/396629-pandemiya-so-skidkoy-rossiya-vydelila-na-pomoshch-naseleniyu-i-biznesu-v-70-raz-menshe
For electoral authoritarian regimes like the Russian
one, elections are always causes for concern. How-
ever, the Russian leadership has particular reasons for
worrying about the Duma elections of 2021.
Russia enters the election year in rather bad shape from
an economic point of view. Since 2013, the country has
experienced economic stagnation. e Covid-19 pa ndemic
has hit Russia hard, with an estimated 260,000 excess
deaths from April to November 20201 and with the gov-
ernment providing much sma ller economic assistance to the
population and to businesses than most large economies.2
e pandemic contributed to the further decline of Putin’s
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 8
popularity, which was already suffering after the pension
reform of 2018.
3
However, some level of dissatisfaction
with Putin is driven simply by the length of his rule – Rus-
sian society (like most other societies worldwide) is getting
tired of the leader who has been in office for two decades.
In addition to these f undamental developments, several
recent political events are likely to make Russian leaders ner-
vous. e return of Aleksey Navalny to Russia and his sub-
sequent arrest are likely to make him an undisputed leader
of the Russian non-systemic opposition (and a leader who
is recognized by the international community). Protests in
Belarus in 2020 show that even carefully planned elections
can lead to unexpected public protests. In the eyes of the
Russian leadership, Belarus and Navalny are parts of the
general ag gressive stance of the West which ca ll for vigilance.
At the same time, the 2021 elections are likely to
look like a window of opportunity in the eyes of the
Russian non-systemic opposition as well. e experience
of smart voting strategies provides the opposition with
a tool it can use in the upcoming elections. ere have
been multiple episodes in recent years of Russians vot-
ing in a different way than the Kremlin would expect at
the regional and local level, and the opposition can hope
for similar surprises to occur during the 2021 elections.
As a result, for both the regime and the non-systemic
opposition, the upcoming elections are far from ‘business
as usual’, and this will most likely affect their strategies.
To optimize its chances, the K remlin will mainly rely on
a rich repertoire of manipulative and repressive measures
against its opponents like the passing of new repressive
laws aiming to hamper the smart voting strategy, vio-
lent crackdowns on peaceful demonstrations, disinfor-
mation tactics aimed at driving wedges between different
parts of the non-systemic opposition, and the creation
of Kremlin-loyal pseudo-oppositional parties to absorb
some of the regime-critical votes (for example Novye
Lyudi, created in 2020).4 e Kremlin could also try to
instrumentalize Navalny’s further physical and mental
well-being in prison as a tool to blackmail his team and
to constrain its actions. e annual State of the Nation
address Putin has to deliver (the date of which is as of
yet unannounced) would offer the regime the possibil-
ity to announce unexpected moves (e.g., generous social
spending or major policy reforms) which the opposition
will have no chance to prepare for.
e toolbox of the non-systemic opposition is more
limited than that of the Kremlin, but the opposition is
likely to utilize it as thoroughly as possible. One can
expect the non-systemic opposition to attempt to further
3 https://ca rneg ie.ru/c ommenta ry/84052
4 See also: https://meduza.io/feature/2020/01/10/v-rossii-poyavyatsya-neskolko-novyh-par tiy-vklyuchaya-partiy u-razrabotchika-igry-world-
of-tanks-oni-budut-sozdavat-oschuschenie-politicheskoy-konkurentsii
5 https://www.yavlinsky.ru/article/bez-putinizma-i-populizma/
build up the smart voting approach, to organize targeted
protest rallies (with specific and attractive political agen-
das, rather than simple regular events without a clear mes-
sage), to raise the international community’s awareness of
state repressions in order to internationally delegitimize
the current Russian regime, and thereby convince Wash-
ington and Brussels to toughen their sanction agendas.
e systemic opposition under these circumstances
finds itself in a complex situation. On the one hand, it
could benefit from smart voting. On the other hand, the
Kremlin would most likely expect much stronger guaran-
tees of loyalty from the parties allowed to run for parlia-
ment. On top of that, the readiness of the systemic opposi-
tion to cooperate with Navalny is not a given, as a recent
article from Yabloko party leader Grigory Yavlinsky shows.
Yavlinsky warns his readers about Navalny’s nationalist
and populist roots.5 For Yavlinsky, unwillingness to make
any ideological compromises has been the cornerstone of
his politica l stance since the mid-1990s; however, this also
means that the opportunities for cooperation between
Yabloko and Navalny (e.g., placement of Lyubov Sobol on
the Yabloko party list) seem to be questionable.
e heightened risk perception on the side of the regime
and the willingness of the non-systemic opposition to use
the window of opportunity will lead to a highly tense atmos-
phere around the upcoming elections. To exacerbate the
uncertainty, ultimately, the strategies chosen by the actors
will depend not on the objective political situation and the
attitude of the public (which in the Russian case remains
unknown), but on the way the situation is perceived. One
can only speculate how Putin himself interprets the cur-
rent situation in Russia and where he sees the main chal-
lenges to his rule. In any case, political miscalculations on
the side of all actors are highly likely, and possible over- (or
under-)reactions could produce unforeseen consequences.
By far the most likely scenario remains that the regime
will manage to retain control of the Duma and to pre-
vent (or suppress) protests. Still, the election’s aftermath
will create a fog of uncertainty about the further policy
consequences for Russia. One can expect either an eas-
ing of the Kremlin’s current repressive grip with a certain
attempt to improve relations with the West or the com-
plete opposite, the Kremlin politically locking itself into
its current repressive and isolationist vision, or the combi-
nation of both strategies. Aga in, perceptions of the regime,
rather than real developments on the ground, will be the
deciding factor (Belarus could become an important test-
ing ground Russian leadership will draw lessons from).
Please see overleaf for information about the authors.
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 9
About the Authors
Boris Ginzburg is a Ph.D. student at the Free University of Berlin. His research interests include authoritarian pol-
itics (especially within the post-Soviet space) and Israeli foreign policy (Email: b.ginzburg@fu-berlin.de; Twitter:
@BobGinzburg).
Alexander Libman is Professor of Russian and East European Politics at the Free University of Berlin. His research
interests include comparative authoritarianism, Russian sub-national politics, and international cooperation of author-
itarian regimes (Email: alexander.libman@fu-berlin.de)
Before the Duma Elections, Russia is Moving Forward with E-Voting.
Why, and With What Potential Consequences?
By Stas Gorelik (George Washington University / Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of
Bremen)
DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000477859
1 One of the candidates from that electoral district filed official complaints and even created a web resource about the case: https://evoting.ru/
en (accessed 25 March 2021).
Abstract
Numerous experiments with voting technologies
have been recently taking place in Russia. For
instance, the role of online voting has been con-
stantly increasing since 2019, and this trend seems
set to continue in the coming 2021 elections. Why
is the Kremlin tolerating and even promoting such
innovations? In fact, they can boost the current Rus-
sian regime’s legitimacy and allow for “stealth” elec-
toral manipulation. However, they seem to be very
unlikely to prevent post-election protests if struc-
tural conditions for them arise.
e Spread of New Voting Technologies in
Russia
Quite unexpectedly, online voting (officially called dis-
tantsionnoye elektronnoye golosovaniye) was introduced
during the Moscow Duma elections in 2019 (Meduza
2019), though only in three city electoral districts
(okrugs). e next year, in Spring 2020, it was decided
that independent candidates who have to collect cit-
izens’ signatures to run for regional parliaments would
be allowed to do so online through the gosuslugi.ru por-
tal. Furthermore, more than one million voters from
Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod Regions could partici-
pate online in the constitutional plebiscite (TASS 2020,
RBK 2020). is year, nine regions may organize e-vot-
ing in the Duma and other elections, according to the
Central Election Commission (Golosinfo 2021).
On the one hand, these innovations may look rea-
sonable in light of the pandemic. Yet, they seem to be
unlikely to curb electoral fraud. In fact, even the lim-
ited use of online voting in the 2019 Moscow Duma
elections led to a scandal, in which anomalous support
for a candidate supported by the city administration
was detected in one of the “online precincts”.1 In gen-
eral, online voting tools in Russia have been developed
hastily and without proper independent oversight. For
instance, it is still unclear how exactly an online voting
system will function in the coming elections and how
civil society will be able to monitor it (Golosinfo 2021).
How the Kremlin Can Capitalize on ese
New Technologies
To begin with, the introduction and increasing use of
these technologies can be employed as a legitimation
instrument to demonstrate that the current regime is
actually reacting to some voters’ dissatisfaction with
the integrity of elections. For instance, the innovation
of allowing potential candidates to obtain popular sup-
port for their bids through gosuslugi.ru may be con-
sidered a response to the 2019 Moscow protests, which
started when many opposition politicians were disqual-
ified under the pretext of them having provided invalid
signatures in their registration applications.
More importantly, in order to use online voting sys-
tems for stealing votes or adding them to the “right”
candidates, authorities do not need to rely on inter-
mediaries, such as local election officials or directors
of state-owned enterprises. Illicit activities such as bal-
lot stuffing or threats to fire employees disloyal to the
ruling party are sometimes detected by activists, which
sometimes makes such intermediaries wary (Harvey
2020). Meanwhile, some research on protest mobiliza-
tion in response to police repression (Sutton, Butcher,
& Svensson 2014) and on post-election demonstrations
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 10
(e.g., Kuntz & ompson 2009) shows that visual and/or
readily ava ilable evidence of authorities’ misconduct can
significantly increase the likelihood of protests. Obtain-
ing such evidence during online voting is hard. Even in
the case of mounting public criticism, new voting tech-
nologies can be just scrapped, as occurred in 2011 in
Kazakhstan, where electronic voting machines had been
introduced in the early 2000s (Kassen 2020). By doing
so, the Kremlin may again score legitimacy points by
showing its supposed responsiveness.
Finally, authorities can use the practices of e-voting
and online collection of citizens’ signatures in strategic
ways that are “safe” for the regime. For instance, e-vot-
ing may be sanctioned only in the regime’s strongholds.
In Azerbaijan’s 2008 parliamentary elections, video cam-
eras were less likely to be installed in supposedly “prob-
lematic” precincts, where blatant fraud was needed to
2 It is true that the approval rates for the constitutional amendments among those who voted online in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod were
lower than the country’s total of almost 78%: around 62% and around 60%, respectively. Yet, it is striking that the amendments were not
rejected even by online voters, whom one may assume to be more liberal-minded than the average Russian voter.
ensure the desired outcome (Sjoberg 2014).
2
As for voters’
signatures, candidates for regional parliaments may be
allowed to collect only up to 50% of them online. is
leaves authorities quite some room for disqualifications
under the conventional pretext (Bækken 2015) of “val-
idating” physical signatures.
New voting technologies may worsen the situation
with electoral manipulation in Russia, both in the com-
ing elections and thereafter, yet they seem to be unlikely
to prevent mass discontent if conditions for it are ripe.
As some cross-national research shows, post-election
protests happen not or not only because of fraud per se.
ey are more likely when citizens become disenchanted
with the ruling regime due to socio-economic hardships
(Brancati 2014) and start to hope for changes (Lucardi
2019). In such situations, any result favoring the ruling
regime may become a trigger.
About the Author
Stas Gorelik is a PhD candidate at the George Washington University and currently a visiting researcher at the Research
Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen thanks to a grant from the ZEIT-Stiftung. His current
research interests include new forms of electoral manipulation in authoritarian states and pro-democracy mass protests.
Bibliography
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Procedures in Russia?” Communist and Post-communist Studies 48 (1): 61–70.
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www.golosinfo.org/articles/145084
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• Kassen, Maxat. 2020. “Politicization of E-voting Rejection: Reflections from Kazakhstan.” Transforming Govern-
ment: People, Process and Policy 14(2): 305–330.
• Kommersant (2020) “V deputaty cherez gosuslugi.” Kommersant. 14 April 2020. https://www.kommersant.ru/
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RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 11
Will Putin’s Regime Survive?
By Andreas Heinemann-Grüder (University of Bonn and Bonn International Centre for Conversion)
DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000477859
Putin’s regime is a learning authoritarian system, not
immune to crises but resilient. Russia no longer rep-
resents an electoral autocracy since elections have degen-
erated into plebiscites without any meaningful alter-
native. Many decisions are taken on an ad hoc basis,
excluding institutions and beyond legal constraints
that award legitimacy and ensure quality. In Putin’s
Russia, the absolutism of the autocrat, the tone-deaf-
ness of its leading circle and the autonomy of the secu-
rity apparatuses reinforce each other. Since 2012, Pres-
ident Putin has been taking legal and repressive actions
and has heavily invested in media campaigns to safe-
guard his regime and to protect it from interferences
he deems dangerous. Putin’s preventive counter-revo-
lution has been successful so far, criminalizing inde-
pendent civil society, discrediting opposition forces as
a fifth column of the West, controlling the mass media
and instrumentalizing social media, enlarging the out-
reach of the security apparatuses and successfully car-
rying out cyber attacks.
Putin’s regime will survive as long as it commands
sufficient state capacity. e security services and the
judicial system monopolize public violence; the state is
capable of levying taxes and extracting other resources;
it provides basic public services. Bureaucratic procedures
are functional. Russia did not lose a war. Putin’s rule
has compensated for the loss of Russia’s status after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, made forgettable the
uneasiness of having been economically overtaken by the
Soviet Union’s former allies in Ea stern Europe and China.
Putin also defused and substituted the never-admitted
collective shame over Soviet mass atrocities by spread-
ing a sense of Russia’s and the Soviet Union’s historical
greatness. Putin’s revenge for the Russian Versailles syn-
drome resonates among those age cohorts that spent their
formative years in Soviet times and during the 1990s.
Russia’s authoritarian regression fits into the global
trend of democratic stalemate and reversal over the
last two decades. While open military and one-party-
regimes are growing less common, personalist regimes
are quite persistent. e problem of Putin’s succession
is not solved, but succession crises should not be over-
estimated: Azerbaijan, China, Kazakhstan, Turkmenis-
tan and Uzbekistan have solved their succession prob-
lems without causing systemic crises.
Yet, political regimes usually become unstable once
social and political upward mobility is suppressed, when-
ever a gerontocracy (as in the late Brezhnev period) is
cemented, and when the number of regime beneficiaries
shrinks. e kleptocracy of the camarilla could count
on silent approval as long as the regime was able to
hand out clientelistic goods. However, its social clien-
tele is shrinking, and this causes discontent, especially
among the urban middle class.
e more Putin’s regime radicalizes itself, the more
some sources of its legitimacy evaporate—his image
as anti-Yeltsin, James Bond or messiah. Appeals to the
values of the homo sovieticus, to Orthodox traditions or
hurray patriotism after the annexation of Crimea are
losing traction. e generation born after the dissolu-
tion of the Soviet Union is beyond the reach of Kremlin
propaganda and state TV. State-sponsored movements
such as the former “Nashi” no longer mobilize the youth.
Support for the regime is trending downwards. Russia’s
governance model as a petro-state is out of fashion; the
fossil age is coming to an end.
e radicalization of Putin’s regime is also a result
of the structure of political power. Radicalization does
not result from ideological worldviews; the leading circle
in the Kremlin is anti-liberal, but otherwise free of any
weltanschauung. Decisions are taken by a tiny circle of
Putin’s cronies without institutional or personal counter-
weights. e inner circle operates in an unthinking, ster-
eotypica l manner. While power derives from being close
to the president, there are several “verticals of power”.
Each actor in the institutional arrangement has to weigh
which channel of influence is most advantageous. Russia
consists of a system of competing case managers (kura-
tory). However, who is the most favored is not always
easy to discern. In Russia’s political regime, autocracy
is combined with anarchy. is leads to bad decisions
which have to be covered up or corrected. e constant
pressure to hide mistakes and deficits leads to nervous-
ness, blame-shifting and the suggestion of radical solu-
tions. e failed attempt to murder Alexey Navalny is
a case in point, Bellingcat and Navalny’s team exposing
the perpetrators. ese kinds of failures lead to a search
for the guilty party.
e respective syndrome of failure has to be cor-
rected. Finally, radicalization results from the autonomy
of and competition between the security services, espe-
cially the secret services. Over time, the modus oper-
andi of the Kadyrov regime in the Chechnyan Repub-
lic of the Russian Federation has been diffusing from
the Russian periphery to the center, including contract
killings and employing irregular paramilitary forces.
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 12
e behavior of the security services will determine
the regime’s trajectory in the years to come; they can side
with the incumbent, stay neutral or defect. eir calcu-
lus will be informed by their assessment of the power
configuration (nobody likes to side with the loser), the
prospect of amnesty (no tribunals), the danger of insta-
bility spilling over to their organization (no decay of the
army or police as in the late Soviet and immediate post-
Soviet case), the expected impact on patronage (who
will lose privileges) and the regime challengers’ offers
regarding incorporation. e murder of the former spy
Litvinenko in London and the attempted murder of the
former spy Skripal in Salisbury deter potential defec-
tors. e regime will deter civil society from autonomous
activities and use targeted violence against opposition
leaders, but is likely to shy away from shooting at mass
demonstrators—as did Gaddafi, Assad and Yanuko-
vych. Putin will opt for harsh riot control instead of
“bloody Sundays”.
With his exposure of the rottenness of Putin’s klep-
tocracy and the sultanism of his cronies, A lexey Navalny
was temporarily able to set the agenda of public com-
munication. Like a person running amok, Navalny tried
to force Putin into a decisive battle rallying the dis-
contented around his martyrdom. Putin’s spin doctors
had to react, and they did by defaming, arresting and
sentencing Navalny. Navalny targeted the personalist
nature of Putin’s regime, employing the policy style of
a charismatic, populist and polarizing leader himself.
Yet, any group of future challengers in Russia has to
offer a programmatic alternative to Putinism, i.e., more
than a mere replacement of the incumbent, and incen-
tives to defect from the current winning coalition. Elite
splits are more likely to end Putin’s reign than protest.
About the Author
Andreas Heinemann-Grüder teaches Political Science at the University of Bonn and is senior researcher at the Bonn
International Centre for Conversion; recently he has conducted a project on irregular armed groups in the Ukraine
conflict, currently he studies post-Soviet de facto regimes.
Strategies for Russia: Avoiding a New Cold War
By David Lane (Cambridge University)
DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000477859
It is now over twenty years since President Putin first
appeared at the apex of the Russian political elite.
Since that time, relations with the West have cumula-
tively deteriorated. Russia’s support for the secession of
Crimea and the West’s view of Russia’s ‘hybrid’ warfare
have led to a dominant political discourse of a new ‘cold
war’. Donald Trump’s initial attempts to improve rela-
tions with President Putin were sabotaged. Current rela-
tions between Russia and NATO, the United States, the
United Kingdom and the European Union are increas-
ingly hostile and include sanctions which have hurt not
only Russian companies but also its citizens. e UK’s
current foreign policy review (March 2021), for exam-
ple, will raise the cap on the number of British nuclear
weapons and will extend their use to retaliation against
cyber-attack. Even against the background of the enor-
mous domestic costs of the 2008 world financial cri-
sis and the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, it is planned
to increase the UK’s military budget. e UK is mani-
festly responding to former President Trump’s exhorta-
tions for the Europeans to pull their weight in NATO to
sustain their own defence. Russia and China are clearly
in the sights as actual or potential aggressor powers. One
major future task for President Putin will be to try to
improve relations; if he is unsuccessful, he will have to
find means to strengthen Russia’s defences.
President Gorbachev faced similar problems and
adopted a reform position which ended the Cold War.
is is unlikely to be necessary or repeated by President
Putin. Gorbachev came to power on a reform platform
resting on a wea k economic and strategic base. Putin has
consolidated power. His attempts to join the hegemonic
powers have failed: Putin was ignominiously excluded
from the G8 group of countries. Domestically, Putin is
unchallenged ideologically and has no effective politi-
cal opposition: there is no ‘reform movement’, no likely
‘coloured revolution’. e West is divided. e Euro-
pean Union has lost its image of freedom and prosper-
ity, and Germany needs Russia’s energy supply. e
defection of the UK from the European Union will
weaken the influence of the Atlantic alliance in Europe
and strengthen European moves to normalise relations
with Russia.
Perhaps of greater importance is the fact that Rus-
sia under Putin does not pose an ideological or strategic
threat in the same way as the USSR once did. e alleged
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 13
poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daugh-
ter, Yulia, in 2018 appears to be the main charge of the
British government against the current Russian regime.
But with the loss of the EU market, Britain also needs
new trading partners. In the current international con-
text, there seems to be no political or economic basis for
a new cold war. Russia is most likely to continue with
its policy of competitive interdependence with the West.
Of greater concern is the West’s relationship with
China, which is now the West’s ‘significant other’. e
current British defence, security and foreign policy
review considers China’s power ‘to be the most signifi-
cant geopolitical factor of the 2020s’. While ‘socialism
with Chinese characteristics’ in its current form is hardly
an ideological ‘challenge’ to global neo-liberalism, Chi-
na’s economic and technological advance certainly does
put in in competition with many Western companies.
China presents an economic challenge to the hegemony
of the USA which underlies the worsening relations
between the two countries under Donald Trump and
Joe Biden. e cloak of support for competitive electoral
democracy, human rights, and the sanctity of interna-
tional law hides the USA’s awareness of the ucydides’
trap: China is the ascendant challenger. President Xi Jin-
ping is aware of this and has warned against any adver-
sary taking precipitous militar y action. China, however,
in not yet strong enough unilaterally to defeat military
action by the USA. e formation of the One Belt One
Road Initiative and the Shanghai Cooperation Organ-
isation as well as treaties with other states are an indica-
tion that China needs, and seeks, allies. Clearly, a pact
with Russia would create a strategic and military bloc
which would severely weaken the USA’s military hege-
mony and form a military balance of power. A West
European strategy, led by Germany, to avert a strength-
ening of political and military linkages between Russia
and China might well move to a European understand-
ing with Russia. e current policy of demonising Pres-
ident Putin is counterproductive: it diminishes Russia
as a sovereign state, denies it a status as a world power
and concurrently creates the preconditions for a Sino–
Russian pact. President Putin is faced with the dilemma
of how strongly Russia should be coupled with an East-
ern alliance led by China.
About the Author
David Lane is an Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University and a Fellow of the Academy of Social
Sciences (UK). Recent publications include: Changing Regional Alliances for China and the West (With G. Zhu)
(2018); e Eurasian Project in Global Perspective (2016); (With V. Samokhvalov) e Eurasian Project and Europe
(2015); Elites and Identity in the Transformation of State Socialism (2014). He has recently had articles published in
Critical Sociology, Mir Rossii, e ird World Quarterly, Alternativy (Moscow) and International Critical ought.
Citizen versus Strongman: Revival, Social Class, and Social Decay in
Russia’s Autocracy
By Tomila Lankina (London School of Economics and Political Science)
DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000477859
As Russia approaches parliamentary elections in Sep-
tember 2021, analysts confront a polar set of factors
and dynamics that give significant fuel to both the “glass
half full” and “glass half empty” sets of sentiments. Let
us start with factors related to the global context. Across
the world—whether in Myanmar, Belarus, Russia, or
Hong Kong—citizens have been taking to the streets
in peacef ul pro-democracy protests. Simultaneously, we
are seeing the rise and emboldening of the autocratic
strongman. Unencumbered by considerations of the
sanctity of human life, rights, or dignity, dictatorships
and mild autocracies masking as democracies have sig-
nalled that repression is effective as rulers increasingly
break the contract with their people and engage in pop-
ular repression. While citizens across the post-commu-
nist region and protesters globally have been learning
from each other, so too have dictators. Morally, citizens
eschewing violence and embracing the poignant symbol-
ism of flowers, songs, or Valentine’s Day heart shaped
lights of course have the upper hand. However, practi-
cally speaking, they are powerless and outgunned, if
not in some cases outnumbered if one looks at the vast
armies of police “special forces” or actual army divisions
deployed to suppress dissent.
It is with these considerations in mind that we
ought to approach the potential of Russia’s forthcom-
ing elections—and the inevitable manipulations, elec-
toral protests, and suppression that go with them—to
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 14
effect meaningful and irreversible change in Russia’s
regime. It is true that the scale of dissent this year has
been unprecedented. Following the arrest of Alek-
sey Navalny, far more protesters than we have seen in
recent years have taken to the streets. Even cities and
regions where mass street activism had been unheard
of witnessed rallies. is is clear if we examine over-
time regional data in the Lankina Russian Protest Event
Dataset (LaRuPED), which shows how the country is
divided bet ween habitually protesting and active regions
and those which remain largely dormant. Another trend
promising to increase the scale of protest is that, as seen
during the 2011–2012 protest wave, citizens are united
not by their allegiance to a leader, a party, or a move-
ment, but rather by their antipathy towards the regime.
ere are also other dynamics that we should watch
carefully and should not dismiss. Conventionally brack-
eted under the rubric of “demographic” or generational
change, over the last two decades, there have been pro-
found shifts in the cultures, mentalities, and outlooks
of Russians, not just of the younger generations, but
also across generations. Gone are the days of the socially
awkward, insecure, and fearful homo sovieticus. Instead,
we are seeing confident, well-travelled Russians who are
aware of their rights as citizens, as an electorate, and as
taxpayers, who have embraced the values of the West-
ern middle class and who would not put up with any-
thing less than the same kinds of freedoms and dignity
that their European neighbours enjoy.
It is in this light that we should approach the phe-
nomenal symbolism of FBK’s “Putin Palace” video. Not
so much a stunning exposure of the full extent of the
regime’s corruption—for many facts in the video were
hardly new—it is a statement of the chasm between
the values of the middle class and those of the regime.
e former has internalised the sense of embarrassment
associated with conspicuous consumption, and the latter
symbolises precisely the kitsch, the vulgarity, the back-
wardness, if you wish, of the “uncool” regime. e con-
trast is clear when YouTube videos or retweets of arrests
of prominent opposition figures—lawyers, publicists,
journalists, intellectuals, both men and women, in their
homes—give us a glimpse of their simple lives, the ordi-
nary apartments, the modest furnishings, the happy
domesticity. ese are people eschewing greed, corrup-
tion, and disdain for the law to pursue their passions
and fight for the dignity of the citizens of a future Rus-
sia. Contrast that with the now notorious “bunker” of
the old man in the Kremlin. Middle class Russian cit-
izens do not see such a lifestyle of Louis XIV palatial
gold as “cool” or desirable as some may have during the
“wild 1990s.” “Cool” is dignity, a rewarding and morally
uncompromised profession, and rights, not ski helipads,
private chapels, vineyards, or yachts.
But there is another chasm that we ought to con-
sider, that between the middle class—or, more precisely,
the small group within it endowed with a public con-
sciousness—and the rest. I am referring to the segment
of the middle class free from the stupor of the pres-
sures that, say, an underpaid schoolteacher or nurse
faces daily in her work as a cog in Putin’s electoral or
repressive machinery, what I term Russia’s “second class
middle class” or, as the American scholar Bryn Rosen-
feld aptly characterises it, as the state-dependent “auto-
cratic middle class” segment. For, as I write in my forth-
coming book, communism in Russia never succeeded in
fully abolishing the society of estates (sosloviya), with the
small and superbly educated social minority of the intel-
ligentsia of noble, clergy, or urban burgher background
outnumbered by a vast army of the latter-day peasant
habitually underprivileged in the system of imperial
estates and the neo-estate social gradations of commu-
nism. Furthermore, as Alexander Libman and I explore
in a forthcoming paper in the American Political Science
Review, these estate legacies continue to influence Rus-
sians’ orientations towards the politica l realm. ese his-
torical considerations should be at the forefront of how
we approach, say, the question of policing of protest in
present-day Russia, and indeed that of other post-com-
munist autocracies like Belarus. We need to analyse the
social milieus from which the massive army of recruits to
Putin’s National Guard come from, and to find whether
it is the depths of social despair and deprivation, ideo-
logical conviction, ignorance, or a combination of these
factors that make them turn into salaried enablers of the
regime and perpetrators of its violence.
And so I come back to the opening discussion of this
essay. Russian and global regime strongmen do not just
feel emboldened because they see violence happening
across the globe, because other strongmen are doing it
and getting away with it. ey are also confident of their
power to recruit armies of enablers, presumably from
the habitually socially deprived groups, elements of the
crimina l world, and the underclass. And as global social
issues abound—whether due to Covid-19, the decline
of the petrostate, or Western sanctions—and as dic-
tators like Putin drive their economies further into the
ground, so too are we likely to see more of the econom-
ically desperate and poor willing to trade principles for
pay. It is for this reason that I cannot be too optimistic
about what the intensely pointless ritualism of Russia’s
elections this year will bring to the country in terms of
democratic change.
Please see overleaf for information about the author.
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 15
About the Author
Tomila Lankina is Professor of International Relations at the LSE’s International Relations Department. Her research
focuses on comparative democracy and authoritarianism, protests and historical patterns of human capital and demo-
cratic reproduction in Russia and other states. She is the author of two books and has published articles in the Ameri-
can Political Science Review (forthcoming), American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science,
Comparative Political Studies, e Journal of Politics, Comparative Politics, World Politics, Demokratizatsiya, Europe-
Asia Studies, Post-Soviet Affairs, Problems of Post-Communism, and other journals. Her latest book is on the histori-
cal drivers of inequalities and democracy in Russia. It is titled Estate Origins of Social Structure and Democracy in Rus-
sia: e Discreet Reproduction of Imperial Bourgeoisie (rough Communism and Beyond). Cambridge University Press,
2021 (in production).
e Economic Consequences of Autocracy
By Michael Rochlitz (University of Bremen)
DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000477859
I
n competitive democracies, elections are an institu-
tion to hold a government accountable. Good per-
formance is rewarded, whereas poorly-performing gov-
ernments have difficulties getting reelected. is holds
especially true in terms of economic performance; the
fate of the economy probably remains the most impor-
tant factor in liberal democracies to determine if incum-
bent governments get reelected.
During Russia’s parliamentary elections in 2003 and
2007, this was not so much different. After the economic
crash of the 1990s, Russia’s citizens were grateful for the
economic upturn, and for a government that seemed less
erratic tha n the administration of Boris Yeltsin. Despite
some irregularities, the decisive victories of United Rus-
sia in 2003 and 2007 seemed to be a genuine reflection
of the public mood.
ings changed in 2011. Eclipsing the effect of some
useful reforms during the Medvedev presidency, Vla-
dimir Putin’s decision to run again for president and to
head United Russia resulted in a 15% loss for the party
in the December 2011 Duma elections, as compared to
2007. United Russia only managed to keep its major-
ity through massive electoral fraud, sparking the most
intense public protests since the end of the Soviet Union.
To crack down on protests, Putin tightened the
screws upon his return to the presidency, sidelining Med-
vedev’s more liberal economic team and extending the
powers of the country’s security services. e increase
in repression was almost immediately accompanied by
a downturn in economic growth, although global oil
prices remained at an all-time high. W hile Russia’s econ-
omy grew at an average yearly rate of 4.2% bet ween 2010
and 2012, growth was down to 1.5% in 2013.
By the time of the 2016 elections, the situation had
become even worse, with Russia’s economy contrac-
ting by 1% in 2014 and 2.2% in 2015. To limit electo-
ral repercussions, the Kremlin decided to play it safe by
making the election as uneventful as possible. United
Russia refrained from conducting any meaningful cam-
paign, and the date of the election was brought forward
to mid-September, when most Russians were just com-
ing home from their summer holidays. e strategy
worked, with low turnout and significant fraud ensur-
ing that United Russia kept its majority in the Duma.
Five years on, the economic situation has now turned
into a disaster. According to data from the World Bank
(including an estimated economic contraction of 4% for
2020), Russia’s GDP per capita in early 2021 is below its
value in 2008. In other words, the average Russian citizen
today is worse off than they were 13 years ago. In any com-
petitive democracy, a government with such a dismal eco-
nomic record would have been voted out of office long ago.
e problem is not so much the fall in oil prices since
2014, but rather a complete lack of strategy a nd vision by
the Russian government. While Putin was mainly con-
cerned with questions of foreign policy, Prime Minister
Dmitry Medvedev showed himself to be almost embar-
rassingly weak and unable to address the problem of Rus-
sia’s sluggish growth. When he was finally replaced by
Mikhail Mishustin in January 2020, the Covid-19 pan-
demic prevented Mishustin from introducing any signif-
icant changes, even though observers generally consider
him to be a more competent manager than Medvedev.
e weakness of the Russian government was ampli-
fied by a shift in relative power within the Russian rul-
ing elite, away from the more liberal, technocratic man-
agers that were influential before 2012, and towards
the security services, or siloviki. e latter either do not
care about the business climate and the economy, do
not understand the effect of increasing repression and
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 16
control on the performance of a modern market econ-
omy, or both.
Unfortunately, the situation has only become worse
in recent years. Since about 2018, not only firms and
entrepreneurs are constantly harassed and under attack,
but increasingly also science and academia. As innova-
tion is a crucial input to diversify an economy away
from oil and gas, the longer-term effects of these devel-
opments will be devastating. For most scientists work-
ing in Russia, the assertion by Russia’s security services
that the country’s scientific output has to be protected
from predatory foreign powers sounds bitterly ironic.
If Russia’s researchers are no longer allowed to cooper-
ate in any meaningful way with the international scien-
tific community, and most promising young researchers
either leave academia or the country, there will simply
be nothing left to protect.
In Dmitry Medvedev’s defense, one has to say that
when he was president between 2008 and 2011, there
actually was an economic strategy. At the time, the cri-
sis of the years 2008 and 2009 had served as a wake-
up call, pushing the government to adopt more busi-
ness-friendly policies. Institutions were put into place to
protect entrepreneurs from repression, the government
tried to build its own Silicon Valley with the Skolkovo
Institute of Science and Technology, and the police
reform of 2011 actually resulted in a significant reduc-
tion of lower-level corruption. One can only speculate
what would have happened had these policies continued.
In contrast, Vladimir Putin’s economic record since
2012 looks bleak. Most economic reforms and initiatives
that were started under Medvedev either fizzled out or
were discontinued. e average overall growth rate over
the past eight years stands at almost exactly 0%. is is
much too low for an economy with the potential of the
Russian Federation. Even worse, there does not seem to
be a light at the end of the tunnel.
is lack of a perspective has led to the emergence of
a new generation of young, motivated and talented poli-
ticians who see their future taken from them by an aging
and incompetent political leadership. Despite immense
odds, they try to participate in politics, to offer alter-
native solutions to Russia’s many problems. By coming
up with the system of “smart voting” during the 2019
Moscow city elections, they have even managed to put
up a real political challenge to the incumbent party, in
view of the upcoming Duma elections.
Unfortunately, instead of accepting the necessity
of change, the Kremlin is only further tightening the
screws. By repressing all genuine opposition, and increas
-
ingly allowing only pro-Kremlin hardliners to run even
in the systemic political parties, elections have started
to resemble what they looked like in the Soviet Union.
If the policies of the last years continue, this might well
happen to Russia’s economy as well.
About the Author
Michael Rochlitz is Professor of Institutional Economics at the University of Bremen. Two recent publications on
topics related to that of this article are “Property Rights in Russia after 2009: From Business Capture to Centralized
Corruption?” (with Anton Kazun and Andrei Yakovlev, Post-Soviet Affairs, 36(5–6): 434–450) and “Control over the
Security Services in Periods of Political Uncertainty: A Comparative Study of China and Russia” (with Nikolay Pet-
rov, Russian Politics, 4(4): 546–573).
Preparing for the Parliamentary Elections of 2021
By Andrei Semenov (Center for Comparative History and Politics, Perm State University)
DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000477859
T
he upcoming September 2021 parliamentary elec
-
tions in Russia have already become a battlefield
between the regime and the opposition. With the con-
stitutional amendments that allow Vladimir Putin to run
for another term, control over the State Duma has become
crucial to ensure a smooth transition. However, retaining
United Russia’s (UR) majority is a challenging task: the
party’s ratings are at a historic low, and the “smart vot-
ing” strateg y promoted by A lexei Navalny threatens UR’s
dominance in the districts. Consequently, the regime
increasingly relies on coercion and filtering of opposi-
tion candidates. As the struggle over the Duma seats
intensifies, even the systemic opposition parties can’t feel
safe: their ratings are not in good shape either, and their
potential ca ndidates are likely to experience a n additional
pressure to clear the electoral space for the ruling party.
e state of the economy will clearly be at the center of
the agenda. Real disposable incomes have fallen six years
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 17
in a row, the current exchange rate depreciates purchasing
power for imports, and the prospects of economic recov-
ery at the moment are bleak at best. e pandemic has
amplified the existing crisis: in 2020, inflation hit 4.9%
annually (above the 4% Central Bank target) and unem-
ployment peaked at a historic 6.3%. Public concerns about
rising prices, unemployment, poverty, and corruption
remained the most salient problems according to regular
Levada-Center polling: in August 2020, 61% mentioned
concern about inflation (+2 pp. over the previous year),
44% mentioned unemployment (+8 pp.), 39% poverty
(−3 pp.), and 38% corruption and bribery (−3 pp.). e
crisis in the economy was mentioned by 26%, ranking 7
th
.
Against the backdrop of the economic crisis, major
political parties have little to offer. United Russia fol-
lows the executive’s lead and, apart from a recent string
of coercive laws, does not offer much to alleviate the eco-
nomic pains. Not surprisingly, the party’s polling hov-
ered slightly over 30% through all of 2020, with no pro-
spects of recover y. However, the systemic opposition has
not capitalized on this decline much: the Communist
Party’s polling averaged 13.6% in 2020 (−1.8 pp. from
the previous year), the Liberal-Democratic Party’s fell
from 12.3 to 11.5%, and Just Russia gained a negligible
0.16 pp. according to VTsIOM polls. It is the support
for the non-parliamentary parties that has been steadily
rising since 2017, reaching a high of 13.9% in October
2020. Given that the share of those who won’t partici-
pate is surprisingly low (8.9% on average in 2020), the
signs of political realignment among the voters are clear.
New political parties are unlikely to accommodate the
demand for change. Despite breakthroughs in the regional
elections that have allowed parties like “e Green Alter-
native” and “New People” to run for the State Duma with-
out the burden of collecting signatures, their electability
on the federal level remains doubtful. Others—like left-
conservatives “Za Pravdu” (“For Truth”) and “Patriots
of Russia”—preferred to merge with existing players like
Just Russia, probably a desperate attempt at retaining
their center-left loyalists. As Alexei Navalny’s multiple
attempts to register his party failed, a sizeable fraction of
voters has been effectively disenfranchised. Much will
depend on how far the Kremlin is willing to go with its
usual strategy of filtering out the independent candidates.
Lastly, the 2021 federal campaign will be reinforced by
subnational elections in 50 regions (11 executive and 39
legislative), including hotspots like Khabarovsk Krai and
relatively competitive areas like Perm Krai and Sverdlovsk
Region. e para llel campaigns will likely increase turnout,
and higher turnout genera lly benefits the opposition. e y
also impose the additional burden of managing multiple
elections from the center, inviting occasional miscalcula-
tions. For the opposition, it is an opportunity to bargain
and demand concessions from the regime. On a more
negative note, the Kremlin’s resolve to crush the January
2021 mobilization indicates that institutional politics will
remain closed for the most critical part of the opposition.
Parliaments matter even in authoritarian regimes, and
the State Duma is not an exception. Apart from being
a place for bargains between elite groups and the incum-
bent, parliaments legislate and provide a bare minimum
of political representation. Over the years of his rule, Vla-
dimir Putin has preferred to bend the laws in his favor
rather than bluntly violating them. Despite its reputation
of being a toothless rubber stamp, the federal parliament is
a key player in this regard, and to the extent the Kremlin
needs to justify its actions legally, the future of the regime
hinges upon the composition of the next State Duma.
About the Author
Andrei Semenov is the director of the Center for Comparative History and Politics at Perm State University. He is
a political scientist focusing on contentious, electoral, and party politics in contemporary Russia. He has been pub-
lished in Social Movement Studies, East European Politics, and Demokratizatsiya.
Information Wars, Opposition Coordination, and Russia’s 2021 Duma
Election
By Regina Smyth (Indiana University and Woodrow Wilson Center)
DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000477859
B
y 2011–2012, the Putin regime’s efforts to ma nage elec-
toral competition created a bifurcated strategy space:
regime candidates and parties compete for votes, while the
opposition works to produce new information about state
manipulation and the nature of shared grievances. While
the opposition approach has disrupted some regional elec-
tions, by the time of the September 2021 legislative elec-
tions it has greater potential to spark widespread opposi-
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 18
tion mobilization at the ballot box and on the streets. e
combination of societal discontent, effective opposition
information campaigns, and the inability to shut down
new media platforms has challenged the state, forcing it
to adopt risky strategies that confirm the opposition pic-
ture of an unresponsive and authoritarian government.
e Kremlin’s Mobilization Strategy
As the Kremlin’s overwhelming 2016 parliamentary vic-
tory underscored the regime’s capacity to mobilize votes,
United Russia (UR) evolved from a skeletal party into
a site of elite exchange of political access, career develop-
ment, and resources for loyalty. UR members staff electoral
precincts and serve as election observers. Regional officials,
state enterprises and bureaus can be relied on to turn out
voters to preserve jobs and benefits. UR political technol-
ogists work with local media to shape electoral narratives.
Technical pa rties, Kremlin creations developed to provide
the illusion of choice, and carefully curated district-level
ballots rely on loyal independents, often former UR can-
didates, and candidates available from the more than 80
registered parties developed for the purpose of construct-
ing district-level choices that drain votes and divide opposi-
tion votes. Under this system, the regime won 55 percent
of the vote in the party list race and 203 of 223 district
seats, securing an absolute majority in the State Duma.
Opposition Response
State control of ballot access relegates the opposition
to contesting each stage of the election process—from
party registration to exposing election day falsification—
to demonstrate non-democratic processes and the lack
of electoral accountability. In Moscow in 2019, this
strategy led to significant protest as the CEC barred
opposition candidates from competing.
Election Day coordination mechanisms such as the
Navalny team’s Smart Voting system provide a focal
point for alienated voters to coordinate and define the
degree and nature of discontent. While this solution is
imperfect, and many longtime democratic reform activ-
ists see it as rewarding the co-opted systemic opposition
parties, younger people and newly engaged citizens see
it as a viable strategy. And there is indeed growing evi-
dence that it does effect electoral outcomes, even when
the Smart Voting candidates do not win (Turchenko and
Golosov 2021). e pre-election information strategy is
also evident in the Navalny Team’s latest tactic: adver-
tising of pre-registration of protest participation and
a map of responses that illustrate the nature of opposi-
tion support across the Federation.
e 2021 Challenge
In 2021, economic stagnation, growing household debt
and inflation of food prices, the economic effects of
Covid-19, and the failure of the regime’s economic devel-
opment program have increased the potential for opposi-
tion voting and challenges for the regime’s mobilization
strategy. As in the 2011 Duma election, new media is
buzzing with discussions of how to best express opposi-
tion in the absence of real choice, a precursor to electoral
engagement, protest voting, and street actions. Unlike
in 2011, this new opposition stretches across geography
and class. It also increasingly draws on non-political and
civic activism to provide structure, expertise, and tacti-
cal skills to enable voter coordination (Zhuravlev, Save-
lyeva, and Erpyleva 2020; Zhelnina 2020).
In response, the regime has bolstered its mobilization
strategy with new tactics. It is touting electoral appeals
that promise increased social benefits in exchange for
voter loyalty. Developed through the successful nationa l
vote on constitutional reform, social support will be the
focus of the UR campaign, usurping the programmatic
claims of other parties and Navalny’s left-center popu-
lism (Smyth and Sokhey 2021).
Second, the regime has intensified efforts to drown
out opposition signals, muting a lternative media sources
by circumscribing Twitter and TikTok and colonizing
new media space with pre-installed Russian apps on
devices sold in the Federation. Regional governors are
creating portals for voters to lodge complaints and col-
lect information about citizen preferences. e Krem-
lin has developed a similar information monitoring sys-
tem that bypasses governors and sends details about
voters’ grievances to political technologists in the Pres-
idential Administration. High-profile crackdowns on
Alexei Navalny, his team, and independent deputies
have extended into the civic space to break the connec-
tion between non-political activism and electoral mobi-
lization and silence critical voices. Finally, the Kremlin
is mimicking the Smart Voting strategy with its own
“Smart Voice” app, one of many new tools that co-opt
opposition tactics.
Finally, recent actions against pension reform and
Covid-19 have revealed conflict within the Communist
Party, and disdain among its rank-and-file for its lead-
ership’s collaboration with the Kremlin. e February
2021 pro-Navalny protests highlighted new schisms
as rising regional party leaders expressed support for
Navalny and his social democratic policy program. e
Kremlin is retaliating against its loyal systemic opposi-
tion with left technical parties and exclusion from par-
ticipation in electoral monitoring programs.
ese actions raise the cost of a Kremlin victory and
provide new information for opposition voters, kicking
off a new cycle of innovation. As elections emerge as
a focal point of discontent and dashed expectations, the
Kremlin’s mobilization strateg y becomes more uncertain
and the potential for post-election protest rises. As the
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 19
Soviet elections of 1989 and 1990 demonstrated, opposi-
tion coordination can be achieved through kitchen talk
and low-tech information transfer, such as the Navalny
strategy of combining online and offline communica-
tion to spread the word about opposition voting tactics.
While revolution is not an inevitable outcome, these
moments can yield unexpected outcomes.
About the Author
Regina Smyth is Professor of Political Science, Indiana University and 2020–2021 Fellow, Woodrow Wilson Center.
Smyth’s recent book is Elections, Protest, and Authoritarian Regime Stability, Russia 2008–2020 (Cambridge Univer-
sity Press).
Reference
• Smyth, R. & Wilson Sokhey, S. (2021). Constitutional reform and the value of social citizenship, Russian Politics,
6, 9 0 –110.
• Turchenko, M., & Golosov, G. V. (2021). Smart enough to make a difference? An empirical test of the efficacy of
strategic voting in Russia’s authoritarian elections. Post-Soviet Affairs, 37(1), 65 –79.
• Zhelnina, A. (2020). Engaging Neighbors: Housing Strategies and Political Mobilization in Moscow’s Renovation,
Doctoral Dissertation, City University of New York, https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4015/
• Zhuravlev, O., Savelyeva, N., & Erpyleva, S. (2019). e cultural pragmatics of an event: e politicization of local
activism in Russia. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 1–18.
RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 266, 8 April 2021 20
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studies. It offers expertise in resea rch, teaching and consultancy. e CEES is the University’s hub for interdisciplinary and contemporar y studies
of a vast region, comprising the former socialist states of Eastern Europe and the countries of the post-Soviet space. As an independent academic
institution, the CEES provides expertise for decision makers in politics and in the field of the economy. It serves as a link between academia and
practitioners and as a point of contact a nd reference for the media and the wider public.