ABSTRACT

The prevailing wisdom among scholars of gender in Russia is that Vladimir Putin – as Russia’s “strongman” president – has become an agent of traditionalism. Some political scientists, often without a gendered lens, have argued that Putin is not so powerful, compelled to deploy various tactics and ideologies to balance competing interests among elites and retain support from the general public. We systematically analyze Putin’s statements about gender in two decades of his annual speeches (1999–2020) to better understand how Putin rules. Coding Putin’s remarks on a spectrum from promoting to opposing gender equality, we find that there has been no shift toward an explicit traditionalism, but rather, an expansion of the gender-stereotypical/Soviet views that have dominated Putin’s pronouncements all along. We argue that Putin’s diverse remarks across the spectrum of gender (in)equality constitute an important part of his efforts to balance diverse elite interests and enlist mass support.

摘要

俄罗斯性别问题学者普遍认为，作为俄罗斯“强人”总统的弗拉基米尔·普京已经成为传统主义的代理人。一些通常没有性别视角的政治学家认为，普京没有那么强大，他不得不采用各种策略和意识形态来平衡精英之间的利益竞争并保持公众的支持。我们系统地分析了普京在其二十年的年度演讲（1999-2020）中关于性别的陈述，以更好地理解普京如何统治。将普京关于从促进到反对性别平等的一系列言论进行编码，我们发现并没有转向明确的传统主义，而是一直主导普京言论的性别定型/苏联观点的扩展。