Abstract
Since the autumn of 2009, when President Dmitrii Medvedev announced that Russia needed to modernize, the term ‘modernization’ has constantly appeared in the Russian media. The term had previously been used mainly by academics but now became a mantra that was reiterated in countless speeches by Kremlin politicians and political commentators. The ruling party promoted the campaign slogan ‘conservative modernization’, the Russian Orthodox Church opened discussion of ‘modernization and morality’, the police authorities debated ‘modernization of the Ministry of the Interior’, the generals advocated ‘modernization of the military’ and the Ministry of Education chanted ‘modernization of the educational system’. In other words, modernization became the new fashionable term of officials.
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Notes
After Putin’s accession to power and complete displacement of the opposition, the remaining parties of the ‘approved opposition’ were transformed into electoral facilities or political broker companies, offering any paying candidate a seat in the legislative assembly, regardless of the candidate’s ideology or programme. See A. Kynev (2009), ‘Osobennosti mezhpartiinoi borby v rossiiskikh regionakh: borba grupp vliyaniya i imitatsiya partiinosti’ [Specifics of Party Competition in Russian Regions: Competition of Interest Groups and Imitation of Party Status], Vestnik obshchestvennogo mneniya [The Russian Public Opinion Herald], no. 4, pp. 24–37.
O. Kryshtanovskaya (2005), Anatomiya rossiiskoi elity [Anatomy of the Russian Elite] (Moscow: Zakharov).
A. Motyl (2009), ‘Russland: Volk, Staat und Führer: Elemente eines faschistischen Systems’ [Russia: State and Leader: Elements of a Fascist System], Osteuropa, Vol. 59, No. 1, pp. 109–24;
Ph. Casula and J. Perovic (eds) (2009), Identities and Politics During the Putin Presidency. The Foundations of Russia’s Stability (Stuttgart: Ibidem);
A. Heinemann-Grüder (2009), ‘Kontrollregime: Russland unter Putin Sc Medvedev’ [Control Regime: Russia under Putin and Medvedev], Osteuropa, Vol. 59, No. 9, pp. 27–48. The latter research makes numerous references to recent publications regarding the classification and identification of the Putin-Medvedev regime.
See e.g. T. Vorozheikina (2009), ‘Avtoritarnye rezhimy XX veka i sovremennaya Rossiya: skhodstva i otlichiya’ [Authoritarian Regimes of 20th Century and Modern Russia: Similarities and Differences], Vestnik obshchestvennogo mneniya, No. 4, pp. 50–68.
D. E. Furman (2009), Politicheskaya sistema Rossii v ryadu drugikh postsovetskikh system [The Political System of Russia and Other Post-Soviet Systems] (Moscow: Institut Evropy RAN).
Z. Brzezinski (2008), ‘Putin’s Choice’, Washington Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Spring), pp. 95–116;
A. Motyl (2009), Russland: Volk, Staat und Führer: Elemente eines faschistischen Systems [Russia: People, State, and Leader Elements of a Fascist System], Osteuropa, Vol. 59, No. 1, pp. 109–24.
Carl Friedrich and Zbignew Brzezinski (1956), Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
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© 2012 Lev Gudkov
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Gudkov, L. (2012). The Nature and Function of ‘Putinism’. In: Jonson, L., White, S. (eds) Waiting for Reform under Putin and Medvedev. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137011206_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137011206_4
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