Protest in Putin’s Russia

Mischa Gabowitsch is a sociologist and historian who works at the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany.

The Russian protests, sparked by the 2011 Duma election, have been widely portrayed as a colourful but inconsequential middle-class rebellion, confined to Moscow and organized by an unpopular opposition. In this sweeping new account of the protests, Mischa Gabowitsch challenges these journalistic clichés, showing that they stem from wishful thinking and media bias rather than from accurate empirical analysis. Drawing on a rich body of material, he analyses the biggest wave of demonstrations since the end of the Soviet Union, situating them in the context of protest and social movements across Russia as a whole. He also explores the legacy of the protests in the new era after Ukraine's much larger Maidan protests, the crises in Crimea and the Donbass, and Putin's ultra-conservative turn.As the first full-length study of the Russian protests, this book will be of great value to students and scholars of Russia and to anyone interested in contemporary social movements and political protest.

* Chapter 1. Introduction: March of Millions* Chapter 2. Putin's Regimes* Chapter 3. Insurgent Observers* Chapter 4. Scenes and Solidarities: Opposition and Grassroots Protest Before 2011-13* Chapter 5. Crossed Purposes: Opposition and Grassroots Protestors in the 2011-13 Protest Wave* Chapter 6. Pussy Riot and Beyond: Art, Religion and Gender Regimes in Russian Protest* Chapter 7. Cognitive Spaces of Protest* Chapter 8. The Transnational Dimension* Chapter 9. Conclusion: Protest in Putin's third term