The 'Illiberal Turn' in Russian Mythmaking: Have the Voters Turned Too?

• In Event: Resurgent Authoritarianism: Manifestations and Implications for Research

Abstract

Insofar as the Russian state of the 2020s has developed an ideological basis, it is as a self-projected great power defending ‘traditional values’, in contrast to the supposedly misguided liberal West. But has the illiberal turn of the country’s leadership been matched by a similar increase in intolerance and perception of threat amongst the population? The paper will examine in more detail the evolution of the Putin regime’s ‘traditional values’ rhetoric, and – using a series of biennial national representative surveys from the 1990s through to the start of the war in Ukraine – how these have resonated with and affected the social attitudes amongst the Russian population. Does the regime’s mythmaking build on, or drive, public sentiment that legitimates its rule?

Authors

• Derek Stanford Hutcheson, Malmö U (Sweden)

• Ian McAllister, Australian National U (Australia)