Putinism, both as a system for ruling Russia and as an ideology, has become defined gradually over the last 22 years. Elements of what has now become what we might call ‘Putinism’ – authoritarianism, personalism, social conservatism
Putinism, both as a system for ruling Russia and as an ideology, has become defined gradually over the last 22 years. Elements of what has now become what we might call ‘Putinism’ – authoritarianism, personalism, social conservatism, violence at home and abroad, religiosity etc. – have always been present within Russia under Vladimir Putin. However, the elements of ‘full Putinism’ were balanced by other factors, i.e., political, economic, and institutional factors within Russia, until the last year and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Analysts, when producing classifications of Putinism, deducing its relationship to democracy and dictatorship, and adducing what might be its ideological antecedents and characteristics, have been struggling to work out what the balance within Putinism has been, i.e., between consensus and coercion, dictatorship, democracy and authoritarianism, and rights and obligations, and between loyalty to the regime based on its values or its delivery of a better life. This is why there have been so many different interpretations of Putinism over the years.
There were, before the war, an almost infinite number of ways that the different elements of Russia’s polity under Putin could be aligned. This gave room for multiple definitions of Putinism as a system of rule and as an ideology. Putinism was defined as a fully-fledged authoritarian system, indeed even a fascist one, but also as an illiberal polity albeit one that was as democratic as could be hoped for given the issues that faced post-communist Russia. Between these extremes, most analysts described it as some version of Russia under Putin, as a hybrid system: it was variously categorised as a state torn in two between informal political practices (corrupt, neglectful of citizens’ political, economic and social rights) and a formal constitutional system that mandated rights and practices such as elections; just another ‘normal’ middle-income country, struggling to cope with the competing pulls of democracy and authoritarianism; or one more neo-patrimonial state in which elites undermined market and democratic governance to extract rent from society and economy.
Things were no clearer regarding the ideological nature of Putinism. It was difficult pre-war to argue unambiguously that Putinism was an ‘-ism’. Putinism, it was argued, contained only a very thin ideological core, if it had one at all. It was more about moderation between the recent extremes of Russian history, Soviet communism and the shocks of economic liberalism than anything else. Putinism was less an ideology than a ‘mentality’, a set of political predispositions that are common to authoritarian polities. These predispositions made up a ‘code’ rather than a prescriptive ideological system in the way that Marxism-Leninism had during the Soviet era. Moreover, there was a great deal of variety in Russian intellectual life and thought.
Putinism has developed as a system of regime maintenance, with the construction of this system influenced by competing forces within the regime.
The last year, and the movement to wartime Putinism, have clarified what the balances are between factors in the Russian political system. Some have portrayed the settling of Putinism into a fully authoritarian, repressive, and ideological variant as an inevitable outcome of Putin’s rule, often portraying it as a reflection of who Putin is. This, however, is too neat a picture of how Putinism developed and what Putinism is. To begin with, it makes it all about Putin. Putin is the prime mover in the Russian political system certainly, but he is also the head of a political elite that is invested in the system of rule and privileges that has been established over the last twenty years. Russian politics – and Russia’s future – is not all about Putin.
Putinism has developed as a system of regime maintenance, with the construction of this system influenced by competing forces within the regime. The development of Putinism as regime maintenance has thus been ad hoc rather than planned or emanating from Putin’s personality. Putinism as a system of regime maintenance has developed in response to Russia’s many weaknesses, particularly economic weakness, and to Putin’s inability to create a political order that can deal with these weaknesses effectively to ensure consistent performance legitimacy. None of the competing forces that have been identified within the Russian political system – economic liberals, securocrats, oligarchs, technocrats, etc. – have been able to construct such an order or agree on the contours of it, torn as they are between different views of development and economic security, and international politics, and over the distribution of rent.
Putin’s inability to create a political order that can deal with Russian weaknesses means that the Putin regime has always been vulnerable, or at least believed itself so, to external pressure and influence and to suffering loss of power. These threats, real and imagined, have been things like contagion from Colour Revolutions threatening Putin’s tenure, loss of influence regionally, and exogenous economic shocks such as Russia experienced during the