Theory behind Russian Quest for Totalitarianism. Analysis of Discursive Swing in Putin's Speeches

Rak, Joanna; Bäcker, Roman

doi:10.1525/cpcs.2020.53.1.13

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 37 publications

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“…The essence of the autocratic regime is the lack of sovereignty of the political nation and thus the existence of another sovereign, such as bureaucracy or functionaries of militarized institutions (siloviki). The reign of this type of group is possible and has an increasing scope thanks to the elimination of the empowerment of other social groups (Rak & Bäcker, 2020). At the same time, this type of sovereign is characterized by a hierarchical structure.…”

Section: Autocratic Regimementioning

confidence: 99%

Why did Putin go too far? The rationality of Vladimir Putin’s decision to begin a war with Ukraine

Bäcker

Rak

2022

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The paper aims to determine the extent of the rationality of Vladimir Putin’s decision to begin a war with Ukraine. Its central argument is that this decision was irrational on three levels. Firstly, the Russian decision-making elites failed to foresee the ability of the Ukrainian army and people to resist efficiently. It might have resulted from the imperial superiority syndrome reinforced by the experiences of 2014. Secondly, the elites treated the reports on the Russian army’s combat readiness as reliable and did not make an effort to verify them. Probably no one can determine the scale of the kleptocracy, and therefore no one has reliable data on the quality of the Russian army’s combat preparation. Thirdly, the elites failed to envisage the scale of support for Ukraine from Western democracies. What is more, they did not take into account the democratic rationality of Western politicians. The same politicians who appeared to Putin to be weak and incapable of action, immediately after the mass social protests and condemnation of Russia’s aggression by public opinion, acted following the clearly expressed will of the political nation. The article reflects on the systemic reasons for such a poor definition of the decision-making situation and then tries to formulate the general relationship between the quality of the decision-making elite and the acceleration of the bifurcation processes of the Russian autocratic regime.

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Section: Autocratic Regimementioning

confidence: 99%

Why did Putin go too far? The rationality of Vladimir Putin’s decision to begin a war with Ukraine

Bäcker

Rak

2022

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The groundwork of Putin’s war

Mennecke

2023

JLP

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Every ideology aims at constructing specific representations of reality that many people can easily adopt. In this paper, mental models described as cognitive representations of reality are used to explain how people come to their beliefs. Applying Johnson-Laird’s theoretical concept, I present mental models reconstructed by means of a qualitative analysis of key lexemes in the Crimean speech of Vladimir Putin held in 2014. This reconstruction reveals how the mental models in question target a shared social cognition among listeners using ideologically loaded references articulated in the speech. Furthermore, tracing ideological references allows a preliminary insight into how the speaker aims to affect the discourse formation process of the time. This reconstruction is indispensable to gain a better understanding of the Russian attack on Ukraine, eight years later.

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Legitimizing Putin’s Regime

Malinova

2022

Communist and Post-Communist Studies

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This article follows the transformations of the official narrative about Russia’s post-Soviet transition over 20 years of Putin’s stay in power. To detect how the gradual evolution of political regime toward authoritarianism was legitimized, it focuses on comparison of concise narratives articulated in the Presidential Addresses to the Federal Assembly between 2000 and 2020. The method of research is computer-assisted qualitative content analysis. The article reveals how the declared stages of modern Russia’s development correlated with the evolving representations of the West. The initial goals of establishing democracy, the market economy, and the rule of law over time were either reinterpreted or dissolved into minor practical tasks. The most often articulated policy goal was raising the people’s living standards, which was narrated as overcoming the trauma of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the hard 1990s. In the Addresses, Russia became represented as a country that completed its transition between 2012 and 2018, with restoring its international positions and military strength, as well as resources for better social welfare. The “democratic society” was declared to be instituted; however, this term was associated with formal elections and facilitating civic participation, not with the alternation and accountability of power.

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Theory behind Russian Quest for Totalitarianism. Analysis of Discursive Swing in Putin's Speeches

Cited by 4 publications

References 37 publications

Why did Putin go too far? The rationality of Vladimir Putin’s decision to begin a war with Ukraine

Why did Putin go too far? The rationality of Vladimir Putin’s decision to begin a war with Ukraine

The groundwork of Putin’s war

Legitimizing Putin’s Regime

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