Cover Osteuropa 3/2006

In Osteuropa 3/2006

Simulated Power, Ceremonial Politics
Elements of Political Culture in Russia

Boris Dubin


Deutsche Fassung

Abstract

Since the start of the Putin era, the state media in Russia has been staging political ceremonies, simulating the existence of powerful leaders and outlining threatening scenarios. These kinds of symbolic political productions are supposed to mobilise solidarity and forge the nation. But it cannot hide the fact that the men at the pinnacle of the Russian state are weak and irresponsible, that the elite is either officious or paralysed and that the population is petrified by fear.

(Osteuropa 3/2006, pp. 19–32)