Abstract:
On March 18, 2018 Vladimir Putin received 76% of the popular vote in Russia's presidential
election. This level of electoral unity had not been observed since the Soviet-era 'elections without
selection' process. In the present study we seek to identify and analyze the discourse- forming
strategies with the most impact used by Vladimir Putin (and to a lesser extent, Dmitry Medvedev) to
foster political consensus among the diverse Russian populous and secure electoral support for their
presidencies through the first quarter of the 21st century. By critically examining the 19 presidential
addresses to the Russian Parliament from 2000 through 2019 and comparing the intent and tone of
each individual sentence to the classic rhetorical triad of nationalism by Levinger and Lytle along
with the distribution of five specific populous narratives, we attempt to describe and partially explain
the continued popular support for Putin's regime. The analysis shows that the Russian Presidents use
of nationalistic and populistic rhetoric intentionally fluctuates throughout the two decades of analysis
and correlates with the occurrence of several historical events. |
