Institutional and Discursive Attributes of the Imperial Project in Modern Russia

This paper aims to enhance the understanding of how the Russian imperial project has been sustained from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the present, by examining its institutional and discursive attributes and their interplay. We argue that the 1990s witnessed a marked weakening of imperial patterns in both institutional structures and official discourse, even as significant segments of Russian society were permeated by grassroots post-imperial resentment. This resentment was strategically mobilized by Vladimir Putin upon assuming power in 2000, as he initiated a consistent restoration of imperial institutions both domestically and abroad, alongside a revival of imperial civilizational discourse. Later, the “Crimean Consensus” of 2014 marked a pivotal moment, synchronizing the development of imperial institutions with both official and popular imperial discourse. However, the 2022 war against Ukraine has introduced a new phase, characterized by the strengthening of imperial discourse while the institutional dimension has either stagnated domestically or been frozen externally in the post-Soviet space. This divergence—a reinforcement of imperial discourse alongside institutional stagnation—may serve as one of the explanations for Russia’s further political dynamics.