Putin's Populist Image

Putin’s populist image

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The question about the nature, features and evolution of the Russian political regime, in which the main player is Vladimir Putin, can be formulated this way: how much the political regime is populist right now? What events influenced it?

Populism emerged over one hundred years ago in the United States of America and still is walking triumphantly across the planet. Going through some significant changes during its long history, populism continues to haunt the minds and hearts of people, to influence political processes in different societies. Originally, populism appeared as a people’s movement in the fight against diverse forms of domination of monopoly capital. It has modified and appeared on the political arena as a “new course” in the United States of America during the period of the Great Depression; as “Gandhism” in India and in other countries;  as a “movement of a new era” that was popular among intellectuals and students; as a “christian socialism”,  and in many other forms.

Populism is considered as a political activity based on the manipulation of popular values and expectations. Voters are the objects of populism, they are those people who influence the results of elections, referendums and other political acts of popular will and who are targeted by these populist actions.

The purpose of populist political leaders (subjects of populism) is the achievement of any political goals or, actually, getting the power.

What are the the goals of the subject of populism? First of all, understanding and analyzing the interests of the masses and their requirements; developing an appropriate programme, concept, aiming to satisfy the interests of the masses; agitation of the masses; occupation of the leading position in society.

Populism is characteristic not only for certain political leaders (subjects of populism), but also for power branches in general, for those who are constantly trying to find out which of them is closer to the people, their needs and problems.

The danger of populism is that as a concomitant attribute of democracy, it sometimes brings to power those political leaders who follow authoritarian or totalitarian principles in the further political activities. Therefore, some countermeasures against populism are necessary in purpose to reduce the negative effects of this political phenomenon and in purpose to establsih a fully-fledged mechanisms of democracy, stable democratic norms and traditions.

At the same time, in modern political life, a public politician is forced to use some certain populist methods, to stick to a certain style in the struggle for power, because complete ignoring of the needs and requests of voters will definitely lead to electoral fail.

In the XXI century populism is back with a new force. Today it is a product of mass culture and consumer’s capitalism that have increased self-esteem and idealized individuals (Maybelline’s commercial “Because I am worth it!”). This is a phenomenon of the era of social networks, and apparently it allowed each of us to broadcast whatever we want for the whole world, it created the cult of "the common man", legitimized his judgments and made them normative. The world of postmodernism with its relativism, pluralism, polyphony, lack of authority and moral judgments led to the simplification and trivialization of politics, to the lowest common denominator. That what populism is, a kind of pop music of politics.

History shows that a request for populism increases after crises. Some kind of response to the crisis of 1929-1933 was the emergence of right-wing populism in Europe and the rise to power of fascist parties in many countries. This process was well described by Walter Benjamin. Today’s populism is a reaction to the 2008-2009 financial crisis; to political changes as annexation of Crimea, Brexit, referendum in Catalonia; terrorist attacks in Europe; war in Syria and migration crisis. Its social support is the new units of maladjusted groups, the losers in the globalization processes. Polls show erosion of the traditional middle class, the former supporters of the main parties: “white collars” are falling victims of optimization, robotics, competition with migrants. The impoverished middle class is rapidly radicalizing, and on this basis a new world anti-liberal trend is appearing, which was mentioned by the political scientist Maria Snegovaya in her recent article “Winter is coming” – the “ right” turn in world politics.^[1]

Apparently this response encompasses as old democracies same as post-Communist countries, and is expressed as in the right  (“Fidesz” in Hungary) same as in the left (SYRIZA in Greece) populism, and if we add to them a traditional Latin American populism, appearing in the radical guise of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, the rise of nationalism in many countries of Asia and Africa, then it becomes obvious that we are talking about generic global trends, about authoritarian “rollback”, which always inevitably follows a period of modernization, according to the theory of “Third Wave Democracy” by Samuel Huntington.^[2] The postmodern protest of "the common man", that is strengthened by the effect of mass media and social networks, sweeps away the traditional political systems of the industrial age, that were built on the principles of representation, participation, meetings, party bureaucracies.  Politics of the modern era is falling apart.

Like some western countries, in the 1990s Russia has undergone a painful transformation, turning the collapse and dislocation and complicated the post-imperial syndrome. Revenge of traditionalism and patriarchy, which were perfectly preserved in the structures of the corporate state and class society, appeared in 2000s. So, this anti-modernization rollback was headed by Vladimir Putin.

In this sense the policy of V. Putin is in demand in a global context. Moreover, with his appealing to the traditional values of the nation, sovereignty, power and war, he anticipated the global reaction and now he is an example for many of the world’s antiprogressive forces such as Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orban and Czech president Milos Zeman. The person of Putin became popular in the West in contrast to the traditional politicians, wallowing in compromises, bureaucratic approvals and technical detail. Putin’s policy appeals as to Russian voters that are missing the stability, same to western people that are tired of the problems with European integration, migration and open markets, appealing to those who are looking for simple solutions and powerful leader.