Elites and Institutions in the Russian Thermidor: Regime Instrumentalism, Entrepreneurial Signaling, and Inherent Illiberalism

The modern Russian regime is one of the more prominent states espousing an explicitly illiberal ideological worldview domestically and abroad. Although regime illiberalism is many-sided, including authoritarian governance characteristics, international diffusion practices, and domestic political management, observers have often assumed that illiberalism is at its core an instrumental or cynical approach employed by the Russian leadership to bolster regime security and promote its foreign policy. This article suggests rather that observed illiberalism has additional roots in the dynamics of authoritarian domestic politics and society, rather than being characterized as simply a cynical top-down strategy of the Kremlin. Rather, regime illiberalism is congruent with many domestic drivers of political and societal influence. While decision-making elites certainly play up illiberalism instrumentally for purposes of regime maintenance and positional international influence, large institutional constituencies for substantive illiberalism also exist independent of regime goals. After suggesting two institutional formats—the Russian parliament and national broadcast media—in which observed illiberalism can best understood as an entrepreneurial behavior by lower-tier elite signaling loyalty and usefulness to the regime center, three further institutional sources are identified to be constituted by inherently illiberal organizational and symbolic forms that would promote illiberalism regardless of the regime’s strategic preferences: the Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian Armed Forces, and the symbolic center of the patronal presidency.