New book shines a light on the opaque Kremlin politics in Russia
The New Kremlinology is the first in-depth examination of the development of personalist rule in Russia. Published by Oxford University Press, this book comes at an interesting time, hot on the heels of the Russian election and a month after the first Royal Russian wedding in a century.
The book is written by Alexander Baturo, an Associate Professor of Government from DCU’s School of Law and Government, together with Jos Elkink from UCD. Both are keen scholars interested in Russia who have noticed over time that it has become increasingly difficult to discern what was really going on in Russia.
Dr Alex Baturo said, “The study of Russian politics and institutions has always attracted and will be attracting scholars fascinated by this country's society and culture, politics, puzzles and contradictions. For better or worse, Russian politics is never boring as a subject of inquiry. It is therefore not surprising that the regime of Vladimir Putin - both because it challenged established beliefs about the role of Russia in global politics but also perhaps due to its villainesque dramatisation potential - has become the subject of constant scholarly, policy and media attention.”
According to the authors, an increased opaqueness within Russia's inner ruling circle saw scholars and pundits forced to rely on speculation, leaks, and even the physical presence of individuals alongside the Russian president, to understand what really goes on.
Baturo and Elkink were struck by how much it all came to resemble the study of elite politics in the Soviet Union, that is, "Kremlinology''. That was how the idea for this book was born.
Dr Alex Baturo added: “If we have the tools to study elections and public opinion, why don’t we have a proper toolbox to study elite politics in the Kremlin, the "New Kremlinology''? This book relies on such a toolbox, novel methods, particularly in text analytics, data and visualisations to gain a better understanding of the politics in the Kremlin.”
The authors concluded that Russia has gradually acquired many, but not all of, the characteristics associated with a personalist regime, which underscores the complexity of political change and the need to unpack the concept of personalism. They believe the lessons of this book extend beyond Russia and illuminate how other personalist and personalising regimes emerge and develop.
New Kremlinology will appeal to scholars and observers of Russian and post-Soviet politics; students of politics in non-democratic regimes; and foreign policy practitioners.
More about the authors:
Alexander Baturo is an Associate Professor of Government, Dublin City University. He has published in journals such as Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, the British Journal of Political Science, and Political Research Quarterly. His book, Democracy, Dictatorship, and Term Limits (University of Michigan Press, 2014) won the Brian Farrell book prize in 2015. He also edited the Politics of Presidential Term Limits (OUP, 2019).
Johan A. Elkink is Associate Professor in Research Methods for the Social Sciences at University College Dublin. His work spans computational modelling, spatial econometrics, and statistical network analysis, applied to voting behaviour, democratization, and comparative politics generally. His work has appeared in the Journal of Politics, the European Journal of Political Research, and Comparative Political Studies.