Description
Many scholars have been sceptical of the role of ideology in post-Soviet Russian foreign policy, viewing Russia's leaders as driven either by ruthless realpolitik or by narrow personal material interests. Yet Russia's invasion of Ukraine appears to demonstrate the importance of ideational factors in shaping Russian foreign policy decision-making. In this paper I seek to conceptualise an emerging Russian ideology, based on fundamental tenets of radical conservative thought but as yet only loosely formulated as a coherent guide to political action. This set of ideas is based on underlying philosophical beliefs about the nature of political order and political change and the role of states and other actors in the international system. As such it offers an interpretative framework for understanding the past and the present, but it lacks a clear programme for the future with popular and universal appeal. Nevertheless, its overlap with thinking in other authoritarian regimes and right-wing populist movements suggests that it forms part of a global ideational trend that is not unique to the Russian experience. As such, it is unlikely that ‘Putinism’ will disappear with Putin - many of its core features will prove to be enduring in Russian political thought.
