The People, Values, and the State: How Vladimir Putin’s Views on Ideology Evolved
The People, Values, and the State: How Vladimir Putin’s Views on Ideology Evolved

Summary/Abstract: The main goal of this article is to analyze the evolution of Vladimir Putin’s understanding of the role of ideology in the Russian political system. This research, based on a discourse analysis of Putin’s addresses, articles, speeches, and interviews, allowed us to reconstruct the Russian President’s views on sovereignty, the Russian state, “the people” and their unity, and trace the emergence of Putinism as a specific ideology directed against the liberal world order. Our study demonstrates that Putin’s approach to ideology has undergone a difficult transformation from abandoning state ideology to its de facto revival. Giving ideology formal legal status by amending the Russian Constitution in 2020 was the logical conclusion of the evolution of Putin’s views. The public protests that swept through post-Soviet countries played a big role in this evolution because Putin perceived them as a threat to national sovereignty. This article shows that Putin’s pursuit of ideological policy serves two main goals: protecting Russia’s sovereignty, which involves not just building effective protection against external influence on Russia, but also reformatting the system of international relations so that the possibility of this influence can be eliminated and providing “national unity” and loyalty to the regime.

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