Russia's Economy's in Trouble, But That Doesn't Mean Russians Will Turn on Putin

[Purveyor]

How Teflon Is Vladimir Putin’s Popularity?

By Joshua Keating

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As tragic and avoidable as it may seem from the outside, the Ukraine crisis has been great politically for President Vladimir Putin, whose popularity recently hit 87 percent, even amid rising consumer prices and a slumping economy caused by economic sanctions. It’s hard to remember now, but Putin’s ratings were at their lowest level since 2000 at the end of last year.

It’s too soon to say with any certainty that the crisis in Ukraine is over or even close to over, but if the Ukraine situation does start to fade into the background, it will be interesting to see whether the Russian government and Putin in particular will start to take some heat for the state of the economy.

As political scientists Graeme Robertson and Sam Greene noted on the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog a few days ago, Russian voters show a particularly strong rally-round-the-flag effect during national security crises, but the effect isn’t always long-lasting.

Denis Volkov, an analyst at the Levada Center, Russia’s largest independent polling organization, compared the current political situation to the last two major spikes in Putin’s popularity: in 1999, when a mysterious series of apartment complex bombings in Moscow prompted the Second Chechen War, and 2008, during the war with Georgia.

During the latter crisis, which also coincided with the lead-up to presidential elections, Putin’s popularity hit its record high of 88 percent in Levada’s tracking polls. “But it went down rather rapidly as a result of the global economic crisis, so we can compare it to this [current situation],” Volkov told me in an interview at Levada’s offices. “From 2008 to the end of 2011, Putin lost one-third of his supporters. The economic situation is also bad now, and sanctions will make it even worse. But there are some differences right now. The way state propaganda works now is very different from then.”


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http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/09/17/russia_s_economy_s_in_trouble_but_that_doesn_t_mean_russians_will_turn_on.html

[Nitram]

1. That's why Putin has cooked up his right-wing nationalist campaign.

A distraction is always useful when the economy goes downhill. I suspect a minority of Russians are on board with the nationalist agenda, though.

[davidpdx]

3. Nationalism always does it

[geek tragedy]

2. The only viable alternatives are Zhironovsky and

the Communists. And, given his control of state media, he is in no danger anyways.

Sanctions are about reducing Russia's influence and power. Cut their economy off at the knees, and one degrades their ability to project power on all other planes.