著者

油本 真理

出版者

ロシア・東欧学会

雑誌

ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2016, no.45, pp.47-61, 2016 (Released:2018-06-02)

参考文献数

29

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This article revisits the beginning of Putin’s third term, which was characterized by the rise of opposition. Here the opposition means “non-systemic opposition,” who placed itself decisive opposition to the regime. One of the most prominent opposition activist was Alexei Navalny. Following the 2011 Duma election, the opposition gained power with the activation of post-election protest movements “For Fair Elections.” Since the protest movements soon declined, many researchers focused more on the regime’s coercive measures towards the opposition. However, it is no less important to ask why the opposition gained power and remained active for a while. This article explores the reason behind the rise of opposition, and reveals how the regime reacted to the opposition’s activities. In answering these questions, this article focuses on the regime’s effort to defend its legitimacy from the opposition’s attacks.The article first explores why the opposition gained power. The answer can be found in the opposition’s active commitment to the politicization of regime legitimacy. Such topics include electoral integrity, distribution of power, corruption and others. The early example of the opposition’s commitment to the legitimacy issue was their initiatives in anti-corruption campaigns. Corruption issue became a trigger for the opposition’s further attack on the regime legitimacy. In addition, it should not be ignored that the opposition’s attack on the regime legitimacy well suited to a populist discourse. The opposition emphasized how the regime contradicts the interests of ordinary people, for example, by committing electoral fraud, contradicting the “rule of law,” or committing illegal enrichment. The regime had difficulty in refuting the opposition’s criticism.Second, the article traces how the regime reacted to the opposition’s attacks. At first, the regime tried to discredit the opposition by mobilizing anti-western rhetoric and strengthening the patriotic mobilization. But the regime’s attempts had limited impact in discrediting the opposition. Then the regime tried to narrow the room for opposition activities by forestalling the opposition’s agenda. The regime actively participated in the anti-corruption campaigns, such as banning the high-ranking officials from possessing bank account abroad, and limiting the maximum amount of money for purchase of cars by officials. The regime’s active commitment to anti-corruption initiative narrowed the room for opposition activities.The analysis on the “era of opposition” reveals the importance of discourse-level struggle over the regime legitimacy. Despite its significant disadvantage against the incumbent elites, the opposition could attack the regime by mobilizing the legitimacy issue. In order to avoid the opposition’s attacks, the regime could adopt limited measures: after a series of attempts, the regime took over the opposition’s agenda and itself began to commit to the legitimacy issue. The experience of Putin’s third term provides us with a useful perspective in predicting the future of Russian politics: once the opposition succeeds in mobilizing the legitimacy issue, it will not be easy for the regime to tackle the opposition’s attacks.