Paul Goode
@jpaulgoode
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Russia, Eurasia, nationalism, autocracy. Editor of @cpcs_journal . Project director @RuMOR_CarletonU . McMillan Chair of Russian Studies @EURUSCarletonU .
Ottawa, Ontario
Joined August 2011
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I'm excited that my article with
@davidstroup
on
#ethnography
and
#authoritarianism
is finally out on Firstview
@PoPpublicsphere
, and it's Open Access!
It started as an ISA 2017 panel, so fitting that it's appeared before
#ISA2023
.
A long-ish preview thread...
(1/18)
#FirstView
from
@PoPpublicsphere
-
On the Outside Looking In: Ethnography and Authoritarianism -
-
@davidstroup
&
@jpaulgoode
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Everyone keeps asking what's motivating Russia in this war. Now, TV is the primary means by which most Russians get their news. It's largely state controlled, making it useful to examine justifications for war, so I looked at 5 channels since Putin's December ultimatums. 1/14
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Russian TV has been making a BIG DEAL of the “new regions” voting for Russia’s president FOR THE FIRST TIME. And the presentation tells us a lot of about this weekend’s reality show (don’t call it an election!). A short 🧵 1/8
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30 years ago, Russia's elected president and parliament both attempted to seize power. Yeltsin rolled out the tanks. A super-presidential constitution followed in December. Democrats abandoned Yeltsin, who turned to oligarchs for support and put Russia on the path to autocracy.
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Russian media observation update: we see a lot of tweets about notorious talk show propagandists, but what are most Russians seeing on television?
This might surprise you, but the answer is more of the same about Ukraine, but a lot less about NATO and the West.
1/10
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Shifting war narratives on Russian TV: mention of genocide disappears, along w/ Ukraine's nuclear threat (perhaps hastened by Russia's messy attempt to seize the Zaporiz'ka nuclear power plant). Threat of chemical and bio weapons are now the preferred narrative on Russian TV.
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Navalny will be remembered as a martyr, but he left a significant imprint on Russian politics and our understanding of how autocracies work (and don't work). Here's a short sampling of how Navalny's been studied in academic research: 1/
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This is how you report it without dignifying the hostage voting in Ukraine with the word "referenda."
Well done,
@CBCNews
. 👏
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In Nizhny Novgorod, a protestor is arrested for holding up a blank sheet of paper. Poignant evidence that everyone already knows the words that belong there, especially those wielding the clubs.
А в Нижнем девушку задержали просто за белый лист бумаги. Тоже армию дискредитирует, видимо. Дурдом 🤦🏻♂️
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Let's start w/ Russia's claim about stopping genocide. If really motivated by humanitarian concerns, then you'd expect them to be constantly expressed throughout the crisis. Instead, we see an instrumental mobilization of genocide once the decision to go to war was made. 3/14
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No outcome is certain, but seems increasingly likely that Russia got into a war it didn't expect. This seems particularly strange, given that nobody should have better intel on Ukraine than Russia. How can we explain it? A short(ish), speculative 🧵: 1/13
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But I digress. Summing up:
1. Putin's humanitarian claims are nonsense, if that wasn't already clear.
2. By mid-January, the Russian public was being primed for war.
3. After pushing US/NATO as security concern, Russian tv switched focus to Ukraine only in February. 11/14
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This media mobilization follows patterns from Russia's previous wars. Rather than invoking humanitarian concerns regularly on a principled basis, they are invoked instrumentally to justify going to war. This was also the case in 2008 and 2014. 5/14
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It confirms the war is an existential matter for Putin's regime. Controlling Ukraine is key to the Kremlin's quest for recognition and identity, as is competing with the US/NATO. But what happens when tv coverage no longer keeps up with the information Russians are getting? 13/14
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Along similar lines, the separatist territories DNR/LNR were hardly mentioned on Russian television from December until it was necessary to prepare the public for going to war. 4/14
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At first glance, Russia's various war narratives are highly confusing. It looks like someone threw a bunch of noodles against the wall to see what sticks. The first thing to note is that no narrative is fully abandoned. All persist with varying levels of intensity. 3/10
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Finally, for anyone wanting to dig into the context and background to Russia's war with Ukraine, check out this virtual issue of
@cpcs_journal
with 11 freely accessible articles: 14/14
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In fact, the US is such a fixation that it appears to live rent-free in the collective minds of Russia television broadcasters--so much so that mentions of the US compete even with mentions of Putin. 10/14
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Of course, the Kremlin calls this a "special operation" and is threatening to throw Russians in jail for 20 years for using words like "war" or "invasion." So while we see an escalation in mentions of Ukraine from January, mentions of war remain muted by comparison. 6/14
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This perhaps explains in part the cognitive dissonance following the declaration of war: stunned Russian elites and citizens, alike, didn't really want a war, but they were certain the US/the West would be to blame if war broke out. 12/14
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Gotta admit, I’m getting pretty excited for the fall semester.
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Special shout out to CEC Chair Ella Pamfilova, who got choked up talking about people in “newly liberated” Avdiivka who were more concerned about voting than the lack of bread. (NOTE: No actual people from Avdiivka were shown) 6/8
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A few updates on Russia's domestic propaganda. As before, data are drawn from Russian TV broadcast transcripts.
1. In the ever-shifting narratives of war, Russian TV doubled down on Nazis & fascists last week. Mentions of bio weapons, info war, nukes & genocide dwindled. 1/4
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Stay tuned for more on regional media. Also h/t to my new research assistant, Diana Danilevskaia, for helping me to get back on track with this analysis! 10/10
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Finally, no election is complete without handpicked international observers explaining that they’ve come to see with their own eyes what Western media lies about. The Italians were made to walk around with helmets and body armor but not the tough-as-nails locals, of course. 8/8
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Ultimately, this was a no-choice process. The role of television is to incentivize people to show up, and it does so with a combination of emotional appeals. As with the annual commemorations of the Great Patriotic War, the idea is to share in the sensation of victory. 2/8
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First and foremost, the “new regions” were EXCITED. They set the pace for all other regions in turnout (though granted with a head start because early voting was allowed in the zone of the SMO). Get cracking, you slackers! 3/8
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Having monitored Russia's war narratives since the invasion began, one thing is puzzling: some narratives quickly faded from broadcast media, yet remain in active circulation. How?
A short 🧵on the double lives of Russia's war narratives (aka my
#APSA2022
paper) 1/9
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I don't usually post memes, but this one's an instant classic.
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So, in sum, the diversity of narratives and aggregate air time devoted to the war have declined on Russian TV. NATO isn't mentioned as much as you might think from watching propaganda talk shows. Nationalists, DNR/LNR, and (increasingly) sanctions dominate. 9/10
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In Luhansk, these people started a “new family tradition” of voting together. Family metaphors were everywhere, as in Russia and its occupied regions are one big happy family that constantly talks about their power and greatness like totally normal families do. 7/8
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What did interviewed voters say they were voting for?
For the greatness of Russia.
For Russia’s future.
For peace.
They are excited, see? And who doesn’t love holding a gigantic flag, right? Good times.
Oh, and nobody mentions a single candidate by name. 5/8
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Voters in the “new regions” were presented as moral guiderails for anyone who might be tempted to think about issues or candidates instead of identity and security. Over and over, it was repeated that voting took place despite threats of violence and fake news. 4/8
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In Mariupol, occupiers led by DNR Denis Pushilin marched through the city with a 300 meter St. George's ribbon. The city's residents did not participate, making this a perfect metaphor for the war since Putin doesn't think Ukrainians exist, anyway.
ДАННОЕ СООБЩЕНИЕ (МАТЕРИАЛ) СОЗДАНО И (ИЛИ) РАСПРОСТРАНЕНО ИНОСТРАННЫМ СРЕДСТВОМ МАССОВОЙ ИНФОРМАЦИИ, ВЫПОЛНЯЮЩИМ ФУНКЦИИ ИНОСТРАННОГО АГЕНТА, И (ИЛИ) РОССИЙСКИМ ЮРИДИЧЕСКИМ ЛИЦОМ, ВЫПОЛНЯЮЩИМ ФУНКЦИИ ИНОСТРАННОГО АГЕНТА
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We need a different term for what's happening in Russia this weekend, because it is not an election in any meaningful sense of the word.
What is it? A ritual performance that reinforces social & political domination and creates a false equivalency with actual public choice.
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Russia's shifting war narratives update: after incorporating additional topics discussed in
@HannaNotte
's 🧵on similarities b/t Russia's campaigns in Ukraine and Syria, we start to see some stabilization around 3 clusters of war topics on Russian TV.
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Some personal news: I received an
@SSHRC_CRSH
Connections Grant for my project, "Russian Media Observation and Research (RuMOR)". In the coming weeks, my Russian media analysis will migrate to
@RuMOR_CarletonU
. We'll also be developing an online dashboard for accessing the data.
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All data is from Integrum's tv broadcast transcripts for Dec 13-Feb 27. I included Pervyi Kanal, Rossiia 1, NTV, Moscow's TV Tsentr. Also included is the independent Dozhd channel as a check on whether a topic might have broader resonance & not just Kremlin talking point. 2/14
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This concern for status recognition feeds a certain obsession with the US as a rival power. Not surprisingly, the US and NATO are mentioned in roughly the same proportions. The ebb and flow of both sets of mentions in lockstep across channels is an artifact of state control. 9/14
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Here, we see more clearly that Russian TV started with a lot of simultaneous narratives. By the end of May, they narrowed to just 3 that warranted mentioning more often than the weather:
NATO, Nazis, and humanitarian corridors.
Yet even these are barely mentioned. 5/10
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For anyone looking for expertise on Ukraine, some accounts to follow (in no particular order, and not an exhaustive list):
@OxanaShevel
@darelasn
@UmlandAndreas
@TarasKuzio
@JohnVsetecka
@PopovaProf
@steven_seegel
@snitsova
@oonuch
@ksvarnon
@terrelljstarr
@channelljustice
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Putin's address declaring that Prigozhin failed thanks to the unity of the Russian people had the same energy as Gorbachev declaring that the failure of the August Coup demonstrated the rightness of Marxist-Leninist principles.
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Apparently there was a sudden escalation of malicious network activity from Russia targeting Carleton University starting last week. Our IT couldn't keep up and had to block all traffic from Russia.
I wonder what could have triggered such an attack?
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My twitter feed suggests there is lots of talk about "satanism" and "satanists" in the Russian media. Who's doing the talking?
The two main sources are state-owned Radio Sputnik and the conspirological Tsargrad TV owned by Konstantin Malofeev. 1/2
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Let's start with Russia's declared war aims of "demilitarization" and "denazification" of Ukraine. These already dropped off viewers' televisions by April, with barely any mention since.
So what are the ways the war is presented and justified? 2/10
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In fact, sanctions are especially interesting. Along with DNR/LNR and nationalists, sanctions continue to be mentioned in at a high frequency, moving almost in lockstep with mentions of "security." 8/10
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While it was argued by many that the escalation was less about Ukraine than about Russian security concerns, they actually appear to be closely linked with Ukraine emerging more frequently by mid-January. Security is important, but not clearly separable from Ukraine. 7/14
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🚨Professional announcement🚨: I am *beyond* excited to be joining the incredible faculty and students of
@EURUSCarletonU
@FPACarleton
@carleton_u
as the McMillan Chair in Russian Studies, starting in January 2021.
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Of course, security can mean a lot of things. For Russia, security involves post-Cold War grievances and emotions concerning its perceived international status including disagreements over whether Russia has gained or lost status since 2014. 8/14
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We can simplify this picture by looking at mentions relative to the weather. If a topic is mentioned less than the weather, it is less likely to be noticed. Likewise, more frequent mentions than the weather mean that viewers are more likely to notice. Ok, let's re-calculate. 4/10
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The war can't be called a war on Russian TV, so it is doubly interesting to look at the ways that it *is* mentioned. There is an obvious surge in "war talk" about WWII around May 9th, but the constants since March are Western and Ukrainian aggression, as well as sanctions. 7/10
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Some staples of Russian TV coverage remain relatively unchanged, like DNR/LNR and alleged nationalists in Ukraine.
Genocide and Nazis/fascists have faded into the background. 6/10
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Echoes of the Soviet era: in Nizhny Novgorod, protesters singing Viktor Tsoi.
В Нижнем Новгороде участники акции на центральной улице города поют песни Виктора Цоя
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For anyone who casually talks about negotiating with Russia over Ukraine's territory, read this important piece by David Lewis.
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I don’t think this will stop people from chasing clout by dunking on Navalny and his wife, but with a read:
Let's put an end to this falsehood about Navalny.
I've heard many times that Navalny's team views Ukraine as a competitor for Western funds and that they have attempted to obstruct Western aid to Ukraine.
This is false.
Let's examine the evidence.
1/
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in Primorskii krai’s regional assembly, a group of Communist Party deputies appealed to Putin to end the war and withdraw troops from Ukraine, saying that otherwise “there will be ever more orphans” in Russia. They were ejected from the session by the region’s governor.
Группа депутатов парламента Приморья выступила против военной операции на Украине
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Russia sanctioned a bunch of US-based academics, esp. noting those with any connection to Columbia's
@HarrimanInst
. Keep up the good work,
@timothymfrye
@KimberlyMarten
@gegs32
@emm_mateo
.
Special shout out to Tom Garza at
@UTCREEES
, who taught me Russian as an undergrad!
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A lot is being made of the
@levada_ru
survey showing 83% support for Putin as evidence of popular support for the war. Now, polling in Russia is highly fraught right now, as
@russophiliac
,
@Krawatzek
& others have observed. But one part gives me pause: just 44% trust Putin. 1/7
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Actually the possibility of armed conflict breaking out among the various groups fighting on Russia’s side has been actively discussed. Can we please stop with all the “why we failed to predict” nonsense?
I spent the last months talking to Russia experts about a possible coup. None of our scenarios included Prigozhin. The idea that the guy with a giant private army who went around talking about revolution would actually act was just too obvious--so we dismissed it.
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Russians who respond to sanctions by nostalgizing Soviet-era economic autarky always seem to forget that the USSR led the world in spontaneously exploding televisions.
There has been a lot of debate about the impact of sanctions against Russia, so I decided to interview a number of Russian businesspeople across different industries to see how their lives have changed.
Some of their answers will surprise you.
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Protests and detentions in Moscow
На Манежной начались массовые задержания. Вяжут даже тех, кто просто стоит.
Видео:
@AvtozakLIVE
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Why fix an election that he has zero chance of losing?
Why invade a country that isn't actually a threat?
Why kill a political prisoner who's already locked away in the Arctic?
If you can't answer these questions, the problem might be your model rather than the data...
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Now that I'm back from traveling, I've spent the day analyzing Russian state TV reporting on the Prigozhin affair June 24-25 for
@RuMOR_CarletonU
. The wild swings in content over just 48 hours are nuts. A proper write-up will follow soon-ish, but here's a teaser:
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Amazed by the people who still call for negotiations, as if the starting point for negotiations isn't rewarding Russia for invading its neighbor, occupying its land, and committing atrocities. Under what conditions would any security guarantee from Russia be considered credible?
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A history professor defends his protesting students from riot police and gets detained in their stead. Respect.
#Belarus
#BelarusSolidarity
Преподаватель отбил у силовиков своих студентов. Он задержан вместо них.
Его имя Вадим Белевец. Кандидат исторических наук
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@PopovaProf
@JulianWaller
From Jerome M. Gilison, "Soviet Elections as a Measure of Dissent: The Missing One Percent," The American Political Science Review, Vol. 62, No. 3 (Sep., 1968), pp. 814-826:
By continuing to call them elections today, we just keep re-explaining the same things over and over.
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Finally, there is another discussion to be had about the way this war ends and how Russia and Russians are re-incorporated into the international community. But that is for later. This is the time to
#StandWithUkraine
. 13/13
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Dear colleagues, I'm compiling a list of resources and initiatives that can help scholars and students who are in need of support or rescue, because of war, displacement, or repression. I will keep updating this thread and please feel free to add your own ideas.
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SCO and CSTO gamed scenarios for reversing color revolutions, not full scale invasion. The underlying assumption in such games is that color revolutions are created by foreign patrons (mostly the US), disregarding all studies showing them to be mostly domestic affairs. 3/13
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A lot of us hoped this war would end quickly, and a lot was riding on how things would play out in Russia's domestic politics. Unfortunately, the grounds for pessimism have only increased with time.
This is an aggregation 🧵 that gathers some of my thoughts on this war. 1/4
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Putin's May 9th speech was full of Nazis and anti-US references, but missing were mentions of Russia's declared aims of "de-nazification" and "de-militarization" of Ukraine.
This isn't new: Russian television mostly abandoned mention of Russia's war aims a month ago.
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Thinking about how this ends in Russia & what comes after, I remembered a 1995 exhibit in Moscow of the secret annexes to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. As I looked at the actual documents, an elderly couple behind me quietly denounced them as fake.
I think about that a lot.
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Looked up from my computer around 3 pm and suddenly realized I’d forgotten to eat today, and hadn’t been out of the house since Tuesday. Not complaining, but the struggle is real. So much to do, and it never feels like enough. Stay strong, friends.
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Predicting Putin's successor is a fool's errand undertaken mostly by those who like to flex their Kremlinology. FWIW, nobody predicted Putin would succeed Yeltsin, and then they predicted Putin would be hamstrung by the oligarchs and regional governors. Just stop.
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We can add that Russia's interventions in Belarus and Kazakhstan were swift and mostly unchallenged. I have no way of knowing what kind of intel Putin receives, but we do know that he doesn't believe civil society (much less Ukrainian nationhood) is a real thing. 5/13
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It also gives Russians plenty of ammo to hold the regime to accounts. Regardless, Russia's war doesn't end without a sea change in domestic politics. The longer the war goes, the more acutely the Kremlin will feel this certainty, which suggests a grim outlook. 12/13
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I've gained a lot of new followers over the last week so I'm re-upping this list of experts on Ukraine, and adding a few more:
@emm_mateo
@globalrhizome
@o_haran
@skudelia
@olgatokariuk
@Mylovanov
@IAPonomarenko
@dobczansky
@snitsova
@VolodymDubovyk
@brik_t
For anyone looking for expertise on Ukraine, some accounts to follow (in no particular order, and not an exhaustive list):
@OxanaShevel
@darelasn
@UmlandAndreas
@TarasKuzio
@JohnVsetecka
@PopovaProf
@steven_seegel
@snitsova
@oonuch
@ksvarnon
@terrelljstarr
@channelljustice
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Weird interview request by a major network to talk about "how some scholars are saying they do not support the notion that Russia’s invasion is a result of NATO’s inclusion of new members." I'm guessing they mean scholars not named Mearsheimer?
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Russianists: We may never truly know what happened to Prigozhin.
Also Russianists: Here's a short thread on the likely implications of Putin killing Prigozhin for Russia, Ukraine, Africa, and the world. (1/64)
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Observers have noted for years that Putin's Russia prefers "easy" wars. Grozny was shelled, avoiding the urban warfare of the 1990s. Georgia 2008 was over in 5 days. Crimea's annexation was quick & bloodless in part b/c Ukraine ordered troops to stand down. 2/13
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This thread kind of blew up, so here are more accounts to follow if you're interested in research on Russian propaganda and media (in no particular order):
@media_politics
@Joanna_Szostek
@Marielle_W_
@irgarner
@AntonShirikov
@florian_toepfl
@daria_kravets
@MaxAlyukov
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I won't address calculations re: domestic reaction except to say there was little reason for Putin to feel threatened. So in short, it's entirely possible that the lessons drawn from recent history led the Kremlin to overreach in the most drastic and tragic of ways. 6/13
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St. Petersburg
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A semi-regular plea to academics: if you aren't able to review a manuscript, PLEASE decline the invitation to review rather than ignore. I promise editors will appreciate a response, either way!
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2/ Plenty has been written on Navalny’s nationalism, but more important was his transformation into an anti-corruption populist & the “oppositional mirror image of Putin.” It made him effective. It’s also why he was distrusted by so many outside Russia.
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We need to be careful not to over-analyze events following the
#Prigozhin
affair as if they were caused by it. Was the mutiny an important event? No doubt. But understanding the nature of its effect on the war and on Russia's domestic politics is tricky.
A short 🧵
1/8
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Moreover, the Kremlin likely expects countries it considers Western puppets to collapse on their own without backing by foreign patrons. Saakashvili and Yushchenko lost power. More recently, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia are backsliding. Belarus was pacified. 4/13
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Interesting new special issue on "Western Narratives and Russian Disinformation" in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, with articles on narratives about nuclear propaganda, bioweapon disinformation, and uses of history in patriotic education.
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4. I'll follow up later with a closer look at how sanctions are reported, but the discrepancy between federal & regional media is intriguing. It suggests perhaps a growing wedge b/w propaganda on national TV and forced acknowledgement of the local costs of Russia's war. 4/4
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Last week, I made a short thread to document the Kremlin's use of TV to prime the public for the invasion of Ukraine. I keep getting asked what Russians are seeing on TV and how this informs their world views, so let's dig a little deeper. 1/8
Everyone keeps asking what's motivating Russia in this war. Now, TV is the primary means by which most Russians get their news. It's largely state controlled, making it useful to examine justifications for war, so I looked at 5 channels since Putin's December ultimatums. 1/14
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I hate to say it, but this is another object lesson in why out-of-area experts should stay in their lane. Keep reading Josh for Syria and Mid East expertise, though.
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After five years, I'm stepping back from my role at
@NationalitiesP
. I'll always be grateful to
@hmylonas
for inviting me to join his editorial team and take charge of the State of the Field. I'm extremely proud of what we've accomplished with it.
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