The four dimensions of Putin : AN IDEAL TYPE ANALYSIS OF VLADIMIR PUTIN’S NATIONALISM

Sammanfattning: Vladimir Putin has been President of Russian Federation for almost 20 years. Powerful politicians of that importance and duration warrant research to understand their personal beliefs in a variety of topics. This study sets out to understand Putin’s opinions on a range of subjects such as multiculturalism, patriotism, and ethnicity to determine “What kind of nationalist is Vladimir Putin?” This question is answered by using four distinct ideal types of nationalism; civic, ethno-cultural, multicultural, and religious. Most of the research material consists of primary texts or articles written by Vladimir Putin, five in total, and two excerpts from answers given by Putin in press conferences. The reason for choosing these specific sources is because they provide direct information on Putin’s opinions and beliefs. After analysis the author of this article has concluded that Vladimir Putin closely resembles the civic nationalism ideal type; however, Putin is also very to the close ethno-cultural nationalism and to some extent multiculturalism with insignificant overlap with religious nationalism. The main reason for this conclusion is because of Putin’s reoccurring encouragement of patriotism through loyalty to the Russian state. Putin has also expressed ethno-cultural statements such as viewing Russian people as the “state building people” in Russia and seeing Russian culture and language as the dominant culture for Russia, not in the sense of stating the fact that majority of Russia is Russian, but also that it should continue being dominant. Not just by language and culture but also by prohibiting nationalist-regionalist political parties.