Class, Culture, and the Problem of Leadership
Journal: Nationalities Papers
Year: 2022

Gulnaz Sharafutdinova's book focuses, as a central problem, on the relationship between the political leadership and the people in Russia. It seeks to explain Putinism as a particular type of political regime, or, to be more precise, of regime legitimacy. By mapping out the existing literature and matching it with the results of her field research, she builds up a convincing explanation of Vladimir Putin's popularity as hinging on the emotional bond between the leader and the masses. She highlig