Watching Russia’s worrying trajectory under President Vladimir Putin, many foreign observers ask how a leader who is so apparently driving his country toward the abyss can remain so popular. The answer is simple: Putin’s supporters — that is, a hefty majority of Russians — do not see the danger ahead.
According to the independent Levada Center, Putin’s approval rating increased from 65 percent in January to 80 percent in March, immediately after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The rate reached its peak in early August, at 87 percent, when many believed that Russia and Ukraine were on the brink of all-out war. Though it fell after that, to 84 percent in early September, the drop is within the margin of error. In other words, there is no basis to claim that Putin’s approval rating is declining.
Putin’s startlingly high popularity certainly cannot be attributed to a positive view of state structures in general. Like most people, Russians are generally dismissive of bureaucracy. They give low grades to specific agencies, consider most officials to be corrupt, and rate the government’s performance on most issues as mediocre, at best.
Approval ratings in this context are not tools for comparing politicians’ performance and prospects, and thus for compelling them to do better or risk being voted out in the next election. Rather, they are a reservoir of the population’s hopes and fears.
During his first two terms, Putin was a strong source of hope, owing largely to the rapid increase in Russians’ incomes. In 2012, this growth began to wane — and so did Putin’s popularity. His 63-65 percent approval rating prior to the annexation of Crimea appeared high by western standards, but was low compared to his previous record — and dangerously close to levels that would threaten his leadership. After all, a regime built around a charismatic leader requires more than middling public support if it is to avoid unrest and violence.
With the economy showing no sign of recovering the robust growth rates that had bolstered Putin’s popularity in the past, regaining support would have required undertaking the daunting task of fulfilling citizens’ demands for better education, improved health care services, and more affordable housing. For Putin, the timing of the political eruption in Ukraine — with protesters eventually forcing the Kremlin-supported president, Viktor Yanukovych, to flee the country — could not have been more ominous.
In such a politically charged context, the sociologist Boris Dubin observed, symbolic acts are more compelling than, say, economic considerations. Indeed, complaints about stagnating incomes and poor public services gave way to displays of unqualified support for the government, with citizens declaring their willingness to shoulder the costs of confronting the West.
Why did the Russian public accept confrontation so easily? Sharply divisive official rhetoric and the evocation of war imagery by state-owned media certainly played a role. But there is another, less obvious factor at work: Russia’s lack of debt. It is easier to get carried away when not much is keeping you anchored.
According to the professional services firm Deloitte, mortgage debt in Russia is 20 times lower, on average, than in the European Union. And the National Agency for Financial Studies reports that only 2 percent of Russians are prepared to take on a mortgage, owing largely to the uncertainty that plagues the market.
For western societies — weighed down by credits, contracts, and other obligations — conflict is extremely costly, so they tend to resist it, and even turn on leaders who suggest it. Ordinary Russians, by contrast, are willing to pin their hopes on a single charismatic figure because they face fewer constraints in doing so. In this sense, Russians have come to depend on their belief in Putin as much as he depends on their support. Instead of serving as a source of stability, as it did in the past, this mutual dependence is driving Russia toward political and economic isolation — with serious consequences for ordinary Russians’ livelihoods.
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The writer is a director at the Center for New Media and Society at the New Economic School in Moscow.
©Project Syndicate
