Publication

This edition of the RAD looks at the current state of Russia's domestic politics. In the lead article, David Lane contends that the country’s political elites have coalesced into a two-part coalition – a national statist bloc and a liberal Western-oriented block that favors neo-liberal market policies. Henning Schröder then analyzes Vladimir Putin's 12 December 2012 address to the Russian Federal Assembly. According to Schröder, the speech was significant not for the policy agenda it outlined, but for its attempt to promote a national-conservative narrative that evokes Russian traditions and past glories. In the third article, Felix Hett and Reinhard Krumm assess the findings of a survey conducted by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation on what constitutes the "Russian Dream". If the results of the survey are indeed accurate, social justice is the highest priority for a majority of Russians. Ensuring it, however, requires a strong state that yet does not intervene in their personal lives. Finally, Oleg Kozlovsky outlines seven challenges facing the loosely-knit Russian protest movement in 2013, including balancing the roles moderates and radicals, reducing the influence of extremists and broadening the movement’s appeal outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg.