Political Legitimacy and Traditional Values in Putin's Russia

The first book to discuss regime legitimation in contemporary Russia after the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine

• Provides new insights into state–society relations in contemporary Russia
• Draws on a large-scale survey of 1,500 respondents in a nationally representative sample, plus 600 respondents each in six regional surveys
• Demonstrates how a conservative values-based rhetoric is being mobilised and implemented by the Putin regime.
• Discusses the roles of political, meso-level and grassroot actors in values-based regime legitimation
• Sheds new light on the turn to ‘traditional values’ in the legitimation of authoritarian regimes in Europe

Since Vladimir Putin’s return to the Russian presidency in 2012, protection and promotion of so-called ‘traditional values’ has played a prominent role in the Kremlin’s propaganda campaigns. From the large-scale demonstrations in 2011–2012 to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, conservative social values have been mobilised to justify the Kremlin’s policy choices. In the case of the invasion, for example, Putin argued that the allegedly ‘decadent’ western world was using Ukraine as a springboard to export its ‘pseudo-values’ into Russia. Drawing on a series of case studies spanning elite-level political rhetoric, the work of various ideological ‘values entrepreneurs’ such as the Russian Orthodox Church, and, not least, of grassroots sentiments, Political Legitimacy and Traditional Values in Putin's Russia explores authoritarian regime legitimation in today’s Russia.