Putin’s authoritarian rule reaches all areas of Russian society, this can be attributed to the soft powers that the regime uses to further establish their power. The basis of this research is a theory from the book Authoritarianism goes global, where the authors describes the importance of soft powers in an authoritarian regime. The soft powers analysed include election monitoring, disinformation, cyberspace security and civil society repression. The aim is to examine which soft powers play a part in the consolidation of the Russian regime, and the strategies used to further legitimise their political agenda. The three questions answered in this research is how did Putin’s first eight years in power affect the use of soft powers in Russia today? What soft powers have led to the consolidation of an authoritarian regime in Russia? And how does Putin use these soft powers to further legitimize his political agenda? A qualitative text analysis was performed to answer the questions. The conclusions drawn is that Putin’s actions today are heavily influenced by his first presidency. Furthermore he extensively use the soft powers, and they have a significant influence on how the Russian authoritarian regime manage to consolidate power. Moreover the proficiency shown while manipulating these arenas leads to Putin being able to further legitimise his political agenda.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-79442 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Esselgren, Rebecca |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för statsvetenskap (ST) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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