Authors

Bo Petersson¹;  ¹ Malmö University, Sweden

Discussion

Vladimir Putin has long been successful in projecting himself as the guarantor of Russia’s pre-determined great power role and its internal political and social order. The morally decrepit West, led by the United States, is allegedly scheming to bring Russia to its knees. However, against this onslaught Russia purportedly stands tall to the defense of traditional values of patriotism, Russian Orthodoxy and family concerns. There is an obvious element of general exceptionalism to these legitimation claims on the national level, but there is also dual exceptionalism as Putin is depicted as the only political leader able to live up to these aspirations. In recent years, Alexei Navalny’s vocal opposition has increasingly served to question the president’s legitimation claims. Whereas the Kremlin continues to depict Putin as the superhero who guarantees domestic stability, global power, and the protection of traditional values, the now imprisoned Navalny has made him look tired, ageing, corrupted, and drained of energy, except when it comes to safeguarding his own power and privileges. These counter-narratives may have struck a chord, not least in the wake of the pandemic. The paper draws on Levada Center and other poll data to assess the extent to which the Kremlin’s legitimation efforts still seem credible to the public, and does so in relation to theoretical considerations about legitimation and political myth.