The Pussy Riot affair and Putin's démarche from sovereign democracy to sovereign morality

Abstract

This essay brings attention to the recent discursive turn in Russian politics that is reflected in the Kremlin's turn to issues of traditional values and morality. Expressed in Russia's domestic and foreign policies, this new “morality politics” is dated by the Pussy Riot trial in 2012 that the Kremlin used to advance its new discursive frame in the public sphere. Although not entirely new in its orientation, this new stage of “morality politics” differs from the earlier policy initiatives in its intensity, scope and political significance for the regime. The moralizing stance taken by the regime is accompanied by a divide and rule political tactic, whereby the establishment has tried to marginalize the protesters from the rest of the Russian public that the regime is attempting to reconsolidate based on traditional, conservative values. The essay interprets this recent morality turn as a strategy selected by the Kremlin to restore the regime's legitimacy that has been shaken by the protests of 2011–2012 and looks at the social and political consequences of the selected strategy.

Keywords:

• Russia
• Putin
• Pussy Riot
• social values

Notes

1. http://slon.ru/russia/prigovor_pussy_riot-821705.xhtml#18.

2. They sang on the Red Square, in Moscow subway and near a Moscow prison.

3. Another provocative art group, Voina, was in existence since 2006, for example.

4. This new organization was created in 2011 as the party of power, United Russia, was losing its credibility, in order to provide another rallying point for Putin, who became its leader.

5. Ibid.

6. http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/298448.html.

7. Ibid.

8. http://www.politonline.ru/rssArticle/13499721.html.

9. http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19825.

10. http://en.rian.ru/russia/20121020/176777784.html.

11. http://lenta.ru/news/2013/02/19/history/.

12. http://www.itar-tass.com/c1/816460.html.

13. http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3334783.html.

14. Related to this, the Duma passed a law requiring non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents,” and the law has been implemented leading to the closing, among others, of the election-monitoring NGO “Golos.”

15. http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3334783.html.

16. Adopted by the State Duma on 5 June 2012.

17. Indeed, in that September meeting on morality issues Putin deliberately encouraged participants not to copy laws and policies from the Soviet era, but to be more creative.

18. Such laws were passed by several regional legislatures, starting in 2006 in Ryazan oblast.

19. http://www.levada.ru/12-03-2013/strakh-drugogo-problema-gomofobii-v-rossii.