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The end of the “Strong Hand”? Critical Discourse-Analysis of the Alignment in the Political Culture of the Russian People

This paper is dedicated to studying the subjective meanings and motivations which modern Russians attribute to the normative view on the role of the “strong hand”. It was explored as one of the key characteristics of authoritarianism in the Russian people’s political culture. The author studies its internal structure, to what extent this view is in demand, how exactly this notion is reproduced and rationalized at a discourse level. This view was investigated using critical discourse analysis, while identifying the implicit power balance based on data from semi-structured in-depth interviews with respondents from regional and district centers as well as from rural areas – these were people from the most conservative social groups (according to quantitative study findings based on data from the “Levada-Center”). Upon investigation it turns out that the “strong hand” discourse structure is extremely contradictory and heterogeneous. On one hand, at an abstract value level, it is very popular and continuously being reproduced. The “strong hand” consists of seven essential elements, subjective meanings: “continuity”, “order”, “rigidity”, “no alternative”, “personification”, “anti-establishment”, “folk character”. On the other hand, at a personal level, such an orientation can lose a significant amount of its potency when the context is broadened, supplemented with institutional alternatives etc. However stable alternatives do not seem to be appearing in the field of discourse.
The author concludes that the demand for a strong hand is not an effect of a “special” political culture, but rather a combination of many factors: preserving the authoritarian regime’s institutions, citizens` rational strategies for adapting to them, a failed democratic transition, the painful reforms of the 1990’s, the intentional exploitation of this orientation by the political elite, etc. However, there are reasons to assume that this authoritarian orientation is in a severe state of crisis. It has no effect on the political regime’s legitimization for which the “strong hand” is the most important symbolic resource.