Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Alexeev, Michael
• Pyle, William

Titel

A blind and militant attachment: Russian patriotism in comparative perspective

Ist Teil von

• Post-Soviet affairs, 2023-09, Vol.39 (5), p.309-328

Ort / Verlag

Columbia: Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Taylor & Francis Journals Auto-Holdings Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Much of the literature on patriotic sentiment in post-Soviet Russia leans on public opinion surveys administered exclusively to Russian citizens. Absent a comparison group, such evidence, while helpful, can leave one adrift in trying to assess the meaning of a particular polling result. Drawing on multiple waves of from the International Social Survey Program and the World Values Survey, we benchmark Russians' patriotic sentiment to that of citizens in a diverse group of middle- and high-income countries. This exercise highlights that while Russians are not unusual in the degree to which they have a benign attachment to and/or pride in their country, they stand out for espousing a patriotism that has remained consistently blind and militant since at least the mid-1990s. We speculate as to the underlying cause and highlight a potential consequence: the nature of Russian patriotism has lowered the cost to the Russian leadership of military aggression.