About the project
Since 2012 Russian authorities have adopted a strongly antiliberal rhetoric with attacks on Western secularism, multiculturalism, and alleged moral decay. This rhetoric has been followed up with new laws against blasphemy, “propaganda of non-traditional sexual orientations among minors”, decriminalization of wife battery, etc.
There has been a certain mobilization against these policies in Russian society and media, but also in support of them.
Like most European countries Russia is an industrialized country with modern economies and has a largely urban population, and it is an open question how many people will sympathize with a neotraditionalist policy.
This question we wanted to find answers to in this project, in other words, whether it will increase or decrease regime legitimacy.
Objectives
In our project we traced the politics of neo-traditionalism in Russia on three levels:
- The political – which plays out both nationally and in the regions.
- By examining political speeches and legislation; in civil society by interviewing activists on both sides of the barricades
- Last but not least: by measuring attitudes towards neotraditionalist policies in the populace.
In 2020 we carried out large-scale surveys both nationwide and in six regions with different demographics, to see whether there are any significant differences in support for neotraditionalism, regionally, and between the sexes, different age groups, and people with a high vs low education. Data from the survey will be made available in the website when the project period is finished in 2026.
We used experimental survey techniques to tease out attitudes which respondents may be embarrassed to reveal to pollsters.
Cooperation
Duration
1 September 2020 – 31 August 2026
Financing
The Research Council of Norway
Seminars
What the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian State Want from Each Other - Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages
John P. Burgess, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, 11 September 2024
Putinism – Regime Ideology in Post-Soviet Russia (youtube.com)
Mikhail Suslov, Copenhagen University, 29 February 2024
Russia’s New State Ideology: Engineering Structures and Actors (nupi.no)
Marlene Laruelle, George Washington University, 15 June 2023
How Important Are Traditional Values for Putin’s Support? (nupi.no)
Henry Hale, George Washington University, 30 August 2022
"The protest potential in today's Russia: The gap between intent and action" (nupi.no)
Regina Smyth, Indiana University, 9 May 2022
"The Covid-19 Pandemic and the Legitimacy of Putin’s Regime: A Biopolitical Perspective" (nupi.no)
Andrey Makarychev, University of Tartu, 12 November 2021
"The 2021 Parliamentary Elections as a Window into Russian Politics" (NUPI)
Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, King's College London, 22 September 2021
"Mixed Signals: What Putin Says about Gender Equality" (NUPI)
Valerie Sperling, Clark University, 28 May 2021
Publications
Helge Blakkisrud & Pål Kolstø (2025) Political Legitimacy and Traditional Values in Putin’s Russia. Edinburgh University Press
Pål Kolstø (2024) Family, Sex, and Faith: The Biopolitics of the Russian Orthodox Church. Northern Illinois University Press
Anna Dekalchuk, Ivan S. Grigoriev & Regina Smith (2024) Popular conservatisms and the structure of Russian society. Post-Soviet Affairs
Matthew Blackburn (2024) The morphology of Putinism: the arrangement of political concepts into a coherent ideology. Journal of Political Ideologies
Mikhail Suslov (2024) Putinism – Post-Soviet Russian Regime Ideology. Routledge
Bojidar Kolov (2024) Ecclesiastical populism in contemporary Russia? 'The people' in the political discourse of the Orthodox Church. Politics, Religion & Ideology
Pål Kolstø & Bojidar Kolov (2024) The Religious Component in Contemporary Russian Imperialism. Religions
Pål Kolstø (2023) The Russian Orthodox Church and its fight against abortion: taking on the state and losing. Religion, State and Society
Pål Kolstø (2023) Ukrainians and Russians as ‘One People’: An Ideologeme and its Genesis, Ethnopolitics
Marlene Laruelle (2022) A grassroots conservatism? Taking a finegrained view of conservative attitudes among Russians, East European Politics
Olga Malinova (2022) Legitimizing Putin’s Regime: The Transformations of the Narrative of Russia’s Post-Soviet Transition, Communist and Post-Communist Studies
Bojidar Kolov (2021) Main Cathedral of Mutual Legitimation: The Church of the Russian Armed Forces as a Site of Making Power Meaningful, Religions
Janet Elise Johnson, Alexandra Novitskaya, Valerie Sperling & Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom (2021) Mixed signals: what Putin says about gender equality (tandfonline.com), Post-Soviet Affairs
Op-eds and other popular texts
Stanislav Shkel, Anna Dekalchuk and Ivan Grigoriev (2024) The Roots of Spontaneous Protest in Bashkortostan. PONARS Eurasia Policy
Marlene Laruelle (2023) Which Popular Support for a New State Ideology? Russia.Post
Pål Kolstø (2022) Russernes broderkjærlighet til ukrainerne og Putins angrep på Ukraina: Hvor er sammenhengen? Forskning.no (Norwegian language)
Janet Elise Johnson, Alexandra Novitskaya, Valerie Sperling & Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom (2022) Is Putin lining up with ultraconservatives? We’re not so sure. (washingtonpost.com) Washington Post, Monkey Cage
Henry E. Hale (2022) How Conservative Are Russians? Findings from the 2021
LegitRuss Survey. PONARS Eurasia Policy
Pål Kolstø & Helge Blakkisrud (2021) Not So Traditional After All? The Russian Orthodox Church's Failure as a "Moral Norm Entrepreneur" (ponarseurasia.org), PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo
Helge Blakkisrud (2021) Navalnyj og politisk protest i Putins Russland. NUPI (Norwegian Language)
Regina Smyth (2021) Vladimir Putin plans to win Russia’s parliamentary election no matter how unpopular his party is. The Conversation
Podcasts
"How important are traditional values for Putin’s support?" (nupi.no)
23 September 2022: Henry Hale & Tora Berge Naterstad (host) in The World Stage
"Putin and Covid-19 (soundcloud.com)"
25 November 2021: Andrey Makarychev & Tora Berge Naterstad (host) in NUPI Podcast/Utenrikshospitalet
"Putin legitimerer politisk undertrykkelse med tradisjonelle russiske verdier"
12 October 2021: Pål Kolstø, Lene Wetteland & Mari Lilleslåtten (host) in Universitetsplassen (Norwegian language)
"Et styrt valg i Russland" (nupi.no)
20 September 2021: Helge Blakkisrud & Ane Teksum Isbrekken (host) in NUPI-podden (Norwegian language)