Constructing Citizens in Russia and the Post-Communist World

• In Event: Government and Opposition in Russia: Activism, Protest and Social Media

Abstract

Citizens in autocratic regimes are often apathetic. Faced with political institutions that aim to manage publics instead of including them, citizens think their ideas and actions have little impact on the people in power. As a result, risking the wrath of the government seems pointless. Instead of engaging in public life, citizens in autocratic regimes focus on private pursuits, where they can ignore a political reality they feel they cannot change. In this paper, I examine the ways opposition groups help citizens construct new identities as citizens empowered to act instead of subjects cowed into silence. I focus on how Russian opposition groups use rhetoric about the responsibilities of citizenship to inspire followers. I compare the work of various groups within in Russia as well groups in Ukraine and Georgia that were particularly effective in building large opposition movements. Some of these groups rely on populist appeals, but not all. The research is based on original interviews with and observation of activists and analysis of content on websites and printed materials.

When ordinary citizens participate in mass protests, they claim an identity that they formerly did not have, or at least did not recognise with the same intensity (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001, 315-317; Simon and Klandermans 2001). They become a part of a larger collective that shares a complaint, a purpose, and newly-discovered power. As Mark Beissinger (1996, 104-105) points out, their understanding of who they are and what they can do becomes fluid. What was formerly unthinkable—living in a tent on a public square, perhaps dodging bullets—becomes a new daily reality. A shared identity is the first step toward collective empowerment, “the fulcrum of social change” (Drury and Reicher 2007, 708). But how do these identities form? I show how activists navigate the constraints imposed by political structures and entrenched cultural understandings and seize opportunities to create new collective identities that inspire and unite potential protesters.

Existing research on opposition in post-communist regimes tends to fall into three categories. Some is largely descriptive or focuses on a single group, with minimal attention to which strategies are more effective than others (Gabowitsch 2013). My work is different from this research in its use of structured comparisons to examine the effectiveness of various opposition strategies. A second body of research is very much concerned with the conditions for successful opposition but tends to focus more on political institutions, government actors, and social conditions not in the control of activists (Hale 2006; McFaul 2005; Way 2005). My work is different from this research in its focus on activists. While I am attentive to the external opportunities and constraints facing opposition groups, I pay more attention to the interplay of structural obstacles and strategic choices. A third body of existing research, like mine, focuses on this interplay of structure and strategy, but it pays more attention to opposition groups that have succeeded in overturning autocratic regimes (Beissinger 2007; Bunce and Wolchik 2010). My work is distinctive in its focus on opposition groups laboring in difficult circumstances, which have not yet experienced much success. This earlier stage of identity construction is critical to understanding how opposition movements emerge even in unlikely circumstances.

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Author

• Ellen Carnaghan, Saint Louis University