Protest in Putin’s Russia

The Russian protests, aroused by the 2011 Duma election, have been widely portrayed as a colourful but inconsequential middle-class rebellion, confined to Moscow and organised by an unpopular opposition. In this sweeping new account of the protests, the sociologist and historian Mischa Gabowitsch challenges these journalistic clich?s. Discussing protests across Russia and abroad, he analyses the biggest wave of demonstrations since the end of the Soviet Union. He shows that explanatory frameworks referring to ?the rise of an anti-Putin middle-class? or ?the struggle between the opposition and the regime? stem from wishful thinking and media bias rather than from accurate empirical analysis. Drawing on numerous interviews, an original database of protest events, photos and slogans, as well as a wide range of data assembled by research teams in different parts of Russia, Gabowitsch places the wave of mobilisation in the context of protest and social movements in Russia as a whole, particularly outside Moscow and St Petersburg. He also deals with artistic protesters such as Pussy Riot, and analyses demonstrators? use of media and social networks. Shifting the perspective from opposition movements to individual protesters and their experiences at the demonstrations and protest camps, he argues that what was known in Russia as ?the movement for fair elections? has had important effects that have been obscured by the apparent success of the state?s countermeasures. The book also discusses these carrot-and-stick responses, as well as the legacy of the protests in the new era after Ukraine?s much larger Maidan protests, the crises in Crimea and the Donbass, and Putin?s ultra-conservative turn.