State populism in Russia in a time of war: Examining discourses on ‘Anti-Russian’ sanctions

This article examines state populism as a key mechanism enabling the survival of authoritarian regimes. In contrast to anti-establishment populism, which portrays the ruling elites as the main enemy of the people and sets the people against the elites, state populism sees the state, created and run by the incumbent elites, as the protector of the interests of the people. Drawing on our research on contemporary Russia, we show how the workings of state populism play out in the official discourse on Western sanctions. State populism à la russe draws a rigid and impermeable boundary between the Russian ‘true people’, led by the state, and their external and internal ‘enemies’, the latter group often vilified as traitors. We argue that official pronouncements about ‘anti-Russian’ sanctions are an important tool that allows the Russian establishment to achieve its key goal of regime survival. Through its discourse on sanctions, the regime has been able to i) create multiple divisions along the lines of ‘us against them’, ii) manufacture threats by creating simplistic representations of motive along the lines of ‘they want to destroy us’, iii) misrepresent its opponents as not only malicious but also short-sighted, and iv) create hope and the feeling of pride along the lines of ‘we will survive’. In addition to extending our understanding of authoritarian regimes’ survival tactics, these research results contribute to the burgeoning discussion of the intended and unforeseen effects of sanctions.