Sovereign Democracy, Populism, and Depoliticization in Russia

Abstract

This paper analyzes the discursive basis of the presidency of Vladimir Putin, between 2000 and While this period has often been characterized as a time of regime stabilization, few studies have tackled the regime's legitimizing strategies. Following a discourse theoretical perspective, the paper is structured along five terms: democracy, populism, depoliticisation, re-traditionalization, and modernization. PHILIPP CASULA teaches sociology at the University of Basel IntroductionAfter a four-year interregnum of Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Putin returned to the Russian presidency in spring 2012, swapping posts with his placeholder. While the legal facade is preserved, the ruling group, a cohesive political elite (Stoner-Weiss 2010, 262), is holding on to power -with devastating consequences for the public image of democracy in Russia, and disillusionment among all those who hoped that the political system would take a more liberal turn under Medvedev.Reassessing the Medvedev presidency and Putin's previous two terms in office, one can argue for a high degree of regime stability and continuity of policies, despite minor shifts of emphasis. Sakwa (2004) has provided a useful triad of concepts to address this regime stability (normalcy, normality and normalization). This paper, however, proposes a terminology derived from discourse theory. It focuses on the period 2000-2008, paying particular attention to Putin's second term and the politics of "sovereign democracy", but also taking into account the development of the official discourse under Medvedev. The paper shares a view according to which ideas play a crucial role in shaping (post-Soviet) politics (Sharafutdinova 2012).While "sovereign democracy" was always an elite project at best, 1 which quickly disappeared from public debates, 2 and which was even officially abandoned by the regime and declared useless by Medvedev (2006), this paper argues that the political practices and ideas it denotes represent a fitting summary of the official discourse during the Putin presidencies, especially after 2004, and also of most policies implemented under Medvedev. In short: while being dead as a term, sovereign democracy was still well alive as a practice and as a set of ideas. At least it provides a short-cut to summarize the discursive stabilization process which started under Putin. Hence, while being an "empirical term" it also has an analytical value. As Derek Averre explains:Although 'sovereign democracy' arguably contains nothing new, but is simply the coalescence of certain (...) political ideas evolved over the painful decade and a half since the emergence of post-Soviet Russia, Moscow now feels ready to challenge European values and approaches to foreign policy and claim an equal role in collective leadership and decision making. (Averre 2007, 183) For Hudson (2009), it is an attempt to underscore Russia's "European intellectual heritage" and at the same time underpin its "civilizational distinctiveness"; Morozov (2008, 152) conceives "sovereign democracy" as the ...

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