The Red Mirror

Putin's Leadership and Russia's Insecure Identity

By: Gulnaz Sharafutdinova

Narrated by: Michael Page

What explains Putin's enduring popularity in Russia?

In The Red Mirror, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova uses social identity theory to explain Putin's leadership. The main source of Putin's political influence, she finds, lies in how he articulates the shared collective perspective that unites many Russian citizens. Under his tenure, the Kremlin's media machine has tapped into powerful group emotions of shame and humiliation - derived from the Soviet transition in the 1990s - and has politicized national identity to transform these emotions into pride and patriotism. Culminating with the annexation of Crimea in 2014, this strategy of national identity politics is still the essence of Putin's leadership in Russia. But victimhood-based consolidation is also leading the country down the path of political confrontation and economic stagnation. To enable a cultural, social, and political revival in Russia, Sharafutdinova argues, political elites must instead focus on more constructively conceived ideas about the country's future.

Integrating methods from history, political science, and social psychology, The Red Mirror offers the clearest picture yet of how the nation's majoritarian identity politics are playing out.

©2020 Oxford University Press (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Academically Sound and Entertaining

A great listen! Never stodgy or boring, lots of “hmmmm”s as I was listening

Out of date at time of publishing

Lots of useful insights from recent decades, but the data for the story topped out in the year 2018. Many relevant and significant events occurred between 2018 and the publishing date of this book.