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Putin’s Totalitarian Democracy

Ideology, Myth, and Violence in the Twenty-First Century

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  • © 2020

Overview

Authors:
  1. Kate C. Langdon

    1. Crofton, USA

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    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Vladimir Tismaneanu

    1. University of Maryland, College Park, USA

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    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Provides a new, comprehensive explanation of why ideological authoritarianism reigns in Russia
  • Highlights the warning signs of authoritarian and totalitarian movements
  • Explains how populations might come to reject globalism, democracy, and rationality

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Recentering Putinism

    • Kate C. Langdon, Vladimir Tismaneanu
    Pages 1-34

  3. The Inheritance of an Autocratic Legend

    • Kate C. Langdon, Vladimir Tismaneanu
    Pages 35-53

  4. Enter “the Hero”

    • Kate C. Langdon, Vladimir Tismaneanu
    Pages 55-81

  5. The Intellectual Origins of Putinism

    • Kate C. Langdon, Vladimir Tismaneanu
    Pages 83-112

  6. Putinism as a Culture in the Making

    • Kate C. Langdon, Vladimir Tismaneanu
    Pages 113-152

  7. Russian Nationalism in Education, the Media, and Religion

    • Kate C. Langdon, Vladimir Tismaneanu
    Pages 153-188

  8. Russian Foreign Policy: Freedom for Whom, to Do What?

    • Kate C. Langdon, Vladimir Tismaneanu
    Pages 189-224

  9. The New Dark Times

    • Kate C. Langdon, Vladimir Tismaneanu
    Pages 225-244

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 245-248
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Keywords

About this book

This book studies the cultural, societal, and ideological factors absent from popular discourse on Vladimir Putin’s Russia, contesting the misleading mainstream assumption that Putin is the all-powerful sovereign of Russia. In carefully examining the ideological underpinnings of Putinism—its tsarist and Soviet elements, its intellectual origins, its culturally reproductive nature, and its imperialist foreign policy—the authors reveal that an indoctrinating ideology and a willing population are simultaneously the most crucial yet overlooked keys to analyzing Putin’s totalitarian democracy. Because Putinism is part of a global wave of extreme political movements, the book also reaffirms the need to understand—but not accept—how and why nation-states and masses turn to nationalism, authoritarianism, or totalitarianism in modern times.

Reviews

“Sameness and difference also emerge when we compare these (or any) two books. Thus, both offer thought-provoking responses to the dilemmas outlined. … Putin’s Totalitarian Democracy (PTD) is a polemic that breaches scholarly etiquette. Plots against Russia (PAR), via an emphasis on popular culture and discourse, applies theoretical paradigms that originate in the psychoanalytical branch of cultural studies to topics usually covered within political communication, serving as a fine exemplar of the incipient discipline of critical geopolitics.” (Stephen Hutchings, Journal of Modern History, Vol. 94 (3), September, 2022)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Crofton, USA

    Kate C. Langdon

  • University of Maryland, College Park, USA

    Vladimir Tismaneanu

About the authors

Kate C. Langdon is an Erasmus Mundus scholar. She studied at Vassar College in New York and Charles University in Prague.


Vladimir Tismaneanu is Professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, USA.


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