Russia’s Domestic Security Wars

Reddaway, Peter

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-77392-6

Cited by 8 publications

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“…Virtually all of Putin's inner circle are men who have served as his bodyguards, his coworkers in the secret services, his sparring partners in judo, and his accomplices in the privatization of property and seizure of state wealth. Among the men a variety of groupings (usually referred to as "clans") have formed and re-formed with continuous infighting at all levels (Kryshtanovskaya and White, 2005;Soldatov and Borogan, 2010;Urban, 2010;Ledeneva, 2013;Dawisha, 2014;Zygar, 2016;Marten, 2017;Reddaway, 2018). Putin's gender regime both permits men to enact violence against other men and against women and threatens them with violence if they fail to comply with the regime's agenda.…”

Section: His Use Of Tough and Derogatory Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Gender systems in the Putin autocracy

Wood

2024

Front. Sociol.

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

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Section: His Use Of Tough and Derogatory Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Gender systems in the Putin autocracy

Wood

2024

Front. Sociol.

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“…First, some of the Putin's close personal associates assumed command positions in the Russian economy (Sharafutdinova, 2010). Second, while heavily relying on the so-called siloviki -that is, those who had served or were serving in the armed forces, state security, law enforcement, or one of the other 'force ministries', Putin did not restrict the prominent siloviki from competing for influence and resources, which has been sometimes describe in the literature as 'siloviki wars' (Reddaway, 2018). During that period, significant disagreements on the issues of economic policy and state governance within the inner circle were not only tolerated but even encouraged by Putin (Hashim, 2017).…”

Section: The Dynamics Of Vladimir Putin's Political Regimementioning

confidence: 99%

The place of Russia’s political regime (2003–2023) on a conceptual map of the world’s autocracies

Golosov

2023

Social Science Information

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This study places Russia’s political regime into a comparative perspective by developing a conceptual framework that classifies authoritarian regimes along two dimensions, those of regime-specific institutionalization and electoral institutionalization. The resulting conceptual map places Russia’s political regime of 2003–2023 into the category of regimes that, while including an electoral component, score relatively low on the dimension of regime-specific institutionalization. At the same time, the conceptual map allows for tracing the regime’s evolution along the two dimensions. The analysis reveals that over time, the regime has undergone a staged transformation from electoral authoritarianism with relatively strong, albeit mostly informal, constraints on the exercise of executive power to a full-fledged personalist dictatorship. This process was finalized after the 2020 constitutional amendments, and became manifest in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in 2022.

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Divide and rule: ten lessons about Russian political influence activities in Europe

Karlsen

2019

Palgrave Commun

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The purpose of this study is to improve understanding of how Russia is conducting political influence activities against Europe. It examines current thinking and perceptions on this topic among Western secret services and is based on an analysis of approximately 40 annual reports from 15 secret services in 11 Western countries, covering the period 2014-2018. This activity is by nature covert, and the analysis given in these reports from Western secret services complements other research and shows the broad range of tools and techniques employed for political influence, and much detail on the execution of these activities. According to these secret services, Russia is the foreign state that tries to influence European politics and decision-making most, and more so than China and other states. These influence activities support three main Russian strategic objectives: regime security, predominance in Russia's near abroad, and world-power status for Russia. The longterm objective of Russian influence activities is to weaken NATO and the EU. In the shorter term, it is to lift the sanctions imposed after the Russian intervention in Ukraine in 2014. Russia also has more specific objectives related to each individual country. Russia is targeting the West through a divide and rule approach, using multiple tools of influence. The population is mainly reached through media and social media, exploiting divisive issues. Minorities, refugees, and extremists are used to further this divide and rule approach. Human intelligence and cyber operations are important covert tools of influence. Russia also uses the energy sector, business, and corruption as venues for influence. It has an extensive network of allies and front organizations, and reconstructs reality and rewrites history to legitimize itself and undermine others. Finally, military force is Russia's ultimate tool of influence. These influence activities are of large-scale, and the threat should be taken seriously, but the reports studied also indicate that the effects of these activities are limited.

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Russia’s Domestic Security Wars

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Gender systems in the Putin autocracy

Gender systems in the Putin autocracy

The place of Russia’s political regime (2003–2023) on a conceptual map of the world’s autocracies

Divide and rule: ten lessons about Russian political influence activities in Europe

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