Cultural processes behind contemporary protest mobilisation in authoritarian settings: unaffiliated citizens vs. Putin's regime, 2017-2022

Abstract

This PhD project analyses the cultural dimension of contemporary protest mobilisation – the ideas that drive individuals from different walks of life to the streets. It seeks to advance the current debate on identity, leadership and motivation in the movements based on weak ties with no apparent collective identity. This study focuses on the underrepresented perspective of the unaffiliated protesters, analysing it through a framework that fuses sociology, social psychology and political communication, thus contributing to the interdisciplinary project advocated by many prominent scholars. Furthermore, this work contributes to Democracy Studies and Russian Studies. 35 qualitative interviews with the participants in the anti-corruption and pro-democracy protests in March 2017 and January 2021 and in the anti-war protests in February 2022 across eight large cities of Russia form the base of my empirical work. These narratives combined with extensive secondary research shed light on the meaning-making behind contemporary protest mobilisation, the role of trust in movement leaders and other actors such as family, peers and teachers in this process, as well as the factors that enable anti-regime action in authoritarian settings. My research updates the current frameworks on protest motivations and resonance and suggests the ultimate identity formula for mobilising unaffiliated individuals.