Dualism at Home and Abroad: Russian Foreign Policy Neo-revisionism and Bicontinentalism

Abstract

Russian policy at home and abroad is characterized by ambiguity and indeterminacy. Contrary to those who argue that an authoritarian regime has become consolidated in domestic politics, elements of the dual state continue to battle it out. Although Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in May 2012 undoubtedly strengthened various traditionalist factions, as did the overthrow of the Ukrainian government in February 2014, which intensified fears of ‘colour’ revolutions being used to achieve regime change, the defenders of the constitutional state and with it a more competitive and plural political dispensation have not entirely disappeared. They continue to wage a struggle in the government and within other institutions, while elements of societal mass mobilization remain as a warning that domestic repression can provoke precisely the outcome that the regime so fears. Thus dualism continues, although in conditions of intensified confrontation with the West and the onset of elements of a ‘new Cold War’, the room for manoeuvre has narrowed (Sakwa 2008, 2013).