2024/03/12 by Jan Matti Dollbaum, Seongcheol Kim · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #Eastern European Communism and Reforms #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Political Conflict and Governance
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/1060586x.2024.2324628
openalex publication_date 2024/03/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
This article explores the impact of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on party-system dynamics in Russia by analyzing the war-related communication of the five main “systemic opposition” parties, their leaders, and three Communist MPs who initially criticized the invasion. Examining their adoption of established pro-war regime propaganda (anti-Ukrainian, anti-Western, “Z-talk”) or anti-war rhetoric, we assess the extent of rhetorical convergence in the party system. Based on a dictionary analysis of over 60,000 posts between February 2021 and February 2023, we find the Communist Party to be the most proactive in its pro-war jingoism, Just Russia leader Sergey Mironov to be the clearest case of a regime mouthpiece for Z-talk, and only Yabloko to provide weak but consistent dissent, while New People and the three Communist MPs avoid both pro-war and anti-war rhetoric. Our findings indicate a functional reconfiguration of the party system, stopping short of full-fledged rhetorical harmonization toward “GDR-ization.”