Douglas Rogers Podcast (original) (raw)
Related papers
Petronation? Oil, gas, and national identity in Russia
Post-Soviet Affairs, 2014
Based on survey research, elite interviews, and an analysis of media treatment, this article explores the place of oil and gas in Russia's national narrative and self-identity. Objectively, Russia's economic development, political stability, and ability to project power abroad rest on its oil and gas resources. Subjectively, however, Russians are somewhat reluctant to accept that oil and gas dependency is part of their national identity. This is particularly true of the elites who play a crucial role in defining the dominant national narrative. Ordinary Russians generally have quite positive attitudes about the role of Gazprom and Russia's emergence as an "energy superpower"-while at the same time being wary of becoming a "raw materials appendage" of the outside world. One of the unexpected findings to emerge from the survey data is the strong regional differences on the question of whether Russia should be proud of its reliance on energy. Gazprom is popular in the Central Federal District, but less so as one moves east. The article concludes with an analysis of the factors constraining the role of energy in Russia's national narrative: the prominent history of military victories and territorial expansion; a strong commitment to modernization through science and industry; and concerns over corruption, environmental degradation, and foreign exploitation.
In today’s Russia oil and gas branches of economy turn out to be not only one of the few sources of income but also the key components of national idea, which consists in making natural riches as a symbol of national heritage. In this sense, oil becomes not only a material but also a symbolic resource that needs to be exploited. While the official Russian national discourse attempts to construct itself by invoking the past, oil becomes a substance charged with a semantic resource, which allows one to inscribe it onto the national discourse of history. At the moment, the historical past appears as a resource for modernization and quest for national identity. For ‘Gasprom’ and ‘Rosneft’ – these are technologies of oil exploitation and processing. For Russian literature – these are the mechanisms associated with workings of memory, cultural tradition and poetic language. In both cases we have the quest for source which could restore the lost importance – of state, of nation, of national culture and national literature.
Putinism beyond Putin: the political ideas of Nikolai Patrushev and Sergei Naryshkin in 2006–20
Post-Soviet Affairs, 2023
This essay adds to previous research of Putinism an investigation of the political thought and foreign outlooks of Russia’s Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev and Head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergei Naryshkin, with a focus on their statements between 2006 to 2020. The paper outlines Patrushev’s and Naryshkin’s thoughts regarding the United States, Ukraine, and the idea of multipolarity/polycentrism. We then introduce Patrushev’s critique of liberal values and color revolutions, and Naryshkin’s statements on the memory of World War II and Western institutions. The salience of these altogether seven topics is interpreted with reference to three classical topoi in Russian political thought: the Slavophile vs. Westerners controversy, the single-stream theory, and the civilizational paradigm. Our conclusions inform the ongoing debate on whether to conceptualize Putinism as either an ideology or a mentality.
Russia today - From Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya to Alexei Anatolievitch Navalny, by Hugues Henri
Between these two representative media figures of the contemporary Russian opposition, Anna Politkovskaya and Alexei Navalny, stands the new tsar Vladimir Putin, who seems to be unmovable and enjoys an unalterable popularity. These two opponents are characterized by an extraordinary courage that allows them to face all forms of threats, intimidation and annihilation that a former colonel of the FSB (now KGB) can implement to try to eliminate them by any means, including the ordered murder in the case of Anna Politkovskaya and poisoning for Anatolievitch Navalny. How could this grandson of a Stalin's driver climb so fast and high in the Soviet and post-Soviet state apparatus, while keeping such a capacity of nuisance towards his opponents? How can he match Béria in his dirty work of espionage and secret police, his thirst for absolute and tentacular power and remain in power until 2034? How can he dominate this immense country and its people while remaining an unrepentant ex-KGB spy? Putin sets himself up as the "restorer of Russian greatness", which disappeared after Gorbachev's "historical error of Perestroika" and the "reign of the thieves and oligarchs" under Elstin, who brought him to the top of the power in 1999. Putin will first use the fraudulent monopolies of the Oligarchs to secure the immense gas and oil resources of GazProm, then he will systematically dismiss, proscribe and imprison these Oligarchs in the name of Russian patriotism by dispossessing them of their monopolies acquired thanks to their manipulations during the privatization of state companies and industries by coupons under Elstin. The photo of the golden toilet brush in Putin's palace from Alexei Navalny's documentary has been circulating on social networks and its devastating effect on Russian citizens can be seen in the multiplication of these toilet brushes brandished by anti-corruption protesters in the streets of the many Russian cities where such demonstrations have been held lately at the call of the Anti-Corruption Foundation to demand the immediate release of Alexei Navalny. Despite the thousands of arrests of demonstrators in recent days by riot police and militia, the damage to Putin's image is done, his popularity rating, which has been stable until now, is falling below 50% in the cities and this is only the beginning. For many young Russians who have only known Putin as president, the king is now naked. The desirable liberation of Russian society, which one day will dethrone this cynical and unscrupulous satrapy who mimics the new tsar, is slow in coming for many. What is desirable is that it should happen without bloodshed, without major disturbances, but peacefully, as when Elstin in 1991 thanked Gorbachev and made the Soviet Union disappear with two magic wands. This would be magnificent and would be a kind of posthumous homage to Anna Politkovskaya and to the other journalists who were murdered because they were committed against Putin's unbridled and shameless domination.
Diving into the head of Vladimir Putin, by Hugues HENRI
This article follows two others written by the same author: L'Ukraine & Poutine face à l'histoire ; Vladimir Poutine : Tsar soviétique ? The last issue of Philosophy magazine brings new elements to approach the cosmogony of Vladimir Putin. We will deepen this reflection in this 3rd article dedicated to him.