Matthew Blackburn
Biographic Data
| ID | 4191452 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Matthew Blackburn |
| GIVEN NAMES | Matthew |
| FAMILY NAME | Blackburn |
| SIGNATURE | BLACKBURN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Uppsala University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0188-4074 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 46 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The Battle for Russia’s Rebirth: Interpreting Pro-War Critical Patriotism and Imperial-Nationalism on Telegram
The Putin regime has developed an ambiguous relationship with Russian nationalism, which has been both a threat and a resource to the maintenance of its power. With the launch of the “Special Military Operation,” Russia’s national-patriot groups increased their profile as commentators on – and critics of – the war effort. This article analyses their content on Telegram – whose use has exploded inside Russia – and maps the discourses of this reinv…
Nationalism, populism, and political community: Alexei Navalny’s legacy amid the crisis of liberal globalism
Weaving together theories of political community and social imaginaries with the idea that populism and nationalism anchor the democratic principles of political representation and popular sovereignty in the modern state, this essay reexamines Alexei Navalny’s political trajectory and its implications at a time when illiberal forces are gaining ground. Tracing Navalny’s attempts to combine liberalism, populism, and nationalism, it interprets this…
Reacting to a geopolitical setback: Nato expansion in Sweden and Finland through the lens of Russian geopolitical culture
The accession of Sweden and Finland to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is typically seen as a serious geopolitical setback for Russia, the opposite of its goals to limit the alliance’s spread eastwards. In contrast to Moscow’s stances on Ukraine and Georgia, however, its reaction to NATO’s Nordic expansion is more ambiguous. This article uses the framework of critical geopolitics to analyse several layers of Russia’s discursive reaction…
Pragmatism and protest: Russia’s communist party through Covid-19 and beyond
The Covid-19 epidemic came at a sensitive time for Russia’s leadership, which was attempting a political reset and structural reforms, including the removal of President Putin’s presidential term limits. This article examines how issues related to the pandemic provided new opportunities for the systemic opposition, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, who emerged as the main beneficiaries after capitalising on opportunities created by t…
Introduction to the Special Issue on Under Communism’s Shadow
Perhaps no topic could be more crucial to the concept of “post-communism” than how the Soviet past is commemorated, challenged, or forgotten. The study of historical memory is often correctly tied to identity politics and nation-building. While the usable past framework is broadly applicable to all modern states, in the Russian case a degree of alarmism and negativity surrounds interpretations of how the country has managed its communist past, pa…
The morphology of Putinism: The Arrangement of Political Concepts Into a Coherent Ideology
Scholarly analysis has been divided as to whether Putinism is a coherent ideology. With the decision to invade Ukraine, this question requires reexamination. This article interprets the evolution of Putinism in morphological terms, tracing how political concepts developed into a distinctive ‘thin’ ideology. After interpreting the original formation of Putinism (2000–2012), I unpack how interlinked processes of securitization and culturization res…
Escaping the Long Shadow of Homo Sovieticus
It is often asserted that the values and attitudes of Homo Sovieticus, marked in the rising “popularity” of Stalin, live on in contemporary Russia, acting as a negative factor in social and political development. This article critiques the argument that attitudes to Stalin reflect unreformed Soviet values and explain Russia’s authoritarian regression and failed modernization. Our critique of this legacy argument has three parts. First, after exam…
Cheering and Jeering on the Escalator to Hell: One Year of UK Media Coverage on the War in Ukraine
While there is a common awareness of wartime media censorship in both Ukraine and Russia, there has been less research on Western media coverage and expert analysis of the war in Ukraine. This essay considers the extent to which a skewed and partisan version of the war’s evolution has been presented in UK media. Five stages are identified in the emergence and evolution of a British meta-narrative on the war in Ukraine, replete with ‘cheering’ and…
Parade, plebiscite, pandemic: Legitimation efforts in Putin’s fourth term
Putin’s fourth term as president (2018–2024) has involved new challenges for Russia’s hybrid regime. COVID-19 hit the Kremlin at a sensitive time, when the old institutional forces had been demounted and new arrangements, including extensive constitutional changes, had yet to become cemented. There is an emerging gulf between state rhetoric, PR events, and patriotic performances, on the one hand, and economic chaos, social disorder and dysfunctio…
Toward Nationalizing Regimes: Conceptualizing Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm by Diana T. Kudaibergenova
Reviewed by: Toward Nationalizing Regimes: Conceptualizing Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm by Diana T. Kudaibergenova Matthew Blackburn (bio) Diana T. Kudaibergenova, Toward Nationalizing Regimes: Conceptualizing Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm. 240 pp. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020. ISBN 9780822946175. Diana T. Kudaibergenova’s monograph is a welcome contribution to the study of nation-building, nationa…
The persistence of the civic–ethnic binary: Competing visions of the nation and civilization in western, Central and Eastern Europe
The normative binary of ‘good-progressive’ and ‘bad-retrograde’ nationalism, traceable to the civic and ethnic dichotomy, is alive and well in studies of nationalism and populism today. This article underlines the insufficiency of this approach, firstly by examining three stances on the civic nation in the West, each of which rejects ethnic nationalism and reflect different fundamental concerns. Moving east, in Central Europe the binary is invert…
Mainstream Russian Nationalism and the “State-Civilization” Identity: Perspectives from Below
Based on more than 100 interviews in European Russia, this article sheds light on the bottom-up dynamics of Russian nationalism. After offering a characterization of the post-2012 “state-civilization” discourse from above, I examine how ordinary people imagine Russia as a “state-civilization.” Interview narratives of inclusion into the nation are found to overlap with state discourse on three main lines: (1) ethno-nationalism is rejected, and Rus…
Political Legitimacy in Contemporary Russia ‘from Below’: ‘Pro-Putin’ Stances, the Normative Split and Imagining Two Russias
This paper explores how urban Russians perceive, negotiate, challenge and reaffirm the political configuration of the country and leadership in terms of the ‘imagined nation’. Based on around 100 interviews in three Russian cities, three main pillars appear to prop up the imagined ‘pro-Putin’ social contract: (i) the belief that ‘delegating’ all power into the hands of the President is the best way to discipline and mould state and society; (ii) …
Discourses of Russian-speaking youth in Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan: Soviet legacies and responses to nation-building
Research into post-independence identity shifts among Kazakhstan’s Russian-speaking minorities has outlined a number of possible pathways, such as diasporization, integrated national minority status and ethnic separatism. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with young people in Almaty and Karaganda, I examine how Russian-speaking minorities identify with the state and imagine their place in a ‘soft’ or ‘hybrid’ post-Soviet authoritarian system.…
On Stalin’s Team. The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics
On Stalin’s Team. The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics." Europe-Asia Studies, 68(9), pp. 1608–1609
Systemic and Non-Systemic Opposition in the Russian Federation. Civil Society Awakens
Systemic and Non-Systemic Opposition in the Russian Federation. Civil Society Awakens?." Europe-Asia Studies, 68(6), pp. 1077–1078
Systemic and Non-Systemic Opposition in the Russian Federation. Civil Society Awakens
Systemic and Non-Systemic Opposition in the Russian Federation. Civil Society Awakens?." Europe-Asia Studies, 68(6), pp. 1077–1078
Parade, plebiscite, pandemic: Legitimation efforts in Putin’s fourth term
Putin’s fourth term as president (2018–2024) has involved new challenges for Russia’s hybrid regime. COVID-19 hit the Kremlin at a sensitive time, when the old institutional forces had been demounted and new arrangements, including extensive constitutional changes, had yet to become cemented. There is an emerging gulf between state rhetoric, PR events, and patriotic performances, on the one hand, and economic chaos, social disorder and dysfunctio…
Mainstream Russian Nationalism and the “State-Civilization” Identity: Perspectives from Below
Based on more than 100 interviews in European Russia, this article sheds light on the bottom-up dynamics of Russian nationalism. After offering a characterization of the post-2012 “state-civilization” discourse from above, I examine how ordinary people imagine Russia as a “state-civilization.” Interview narratives of inclusion into the nation are found to overlap with state discourse on three main lines: (1) ethno-nationalism is rejected, and Rus…
The persistence of the civic–ethnic binary: Competing visions of the nation and civilization in western, Central and Eastern Europe
The normative binary of ‘good-progressive’ and ‘bad-retrograde’ nationalism, traceable to the civic and ethnic dichotomy, is alive and well in studies of nationalism and populism today. This article underlines the insufficiency of this approach, firstly by examining three stances on the civic nation in the West, each of which rejects ethnic nationalism and reflect different fundamental concerns. Moving east, in Central Europe the binary is invert…
The morphology of Putinism: The Arrangement of Political Concepts Into a Coherent Ideology
Scholarly analysis has been divided as to whether Putinism is a coherent ideology. With the decision to invade Ukraine, this question requires reexamination. This article interprets the evolution of Putinism in morphological terms, tracing how political concepts developed into a distinctive ‘thin’ ideology. After interpreting the original formation of Putinism (2000–2012), I unpack how interlinked processes of securitization and culturization res…
Discourses of Russian-speaking youth in Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan: Soviet legacies and responses to nation-building
Research into post-independence identity shifts among Kazakhstan’s Russian-speaking minorities has outlined a number of possible pathways, such as diasporization, integrated national minority status and ethnic separatism. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with young people in Almaty and Karaganda, I examine how Russian-speaking minorities identify with the state and imagine their place in a ‘soft’ or ‘hybrid’ post-Soviet authoritarian system.…
Escaping the Long Shadow of Homo Sovieticus
It is often asserted that the values and attitudes of Homo Sovieticus, marked in the rising “popularity” of Stalin, live on in contemporary Russia, acting as a negative factor in social and political development. This article critiques the argument that attitudes to Stalin reflect unreformed Soviet values and explain Russia’s authoritarian regression and failed modernization. Our critique of this legacy argument has three parts. First, after exam…
Political Legitimacy in Contemporary Russia ‘from Below’: ‘Pro-Putin’ Stances, the Normative Split and Imagining Two Russias
This paper explores how urban Russians perceive, negotiate, challenge and reaffirm the political configuration of the country and leadership in terms of the ‘imagined nation’. Based on around 100 interviews in three Russian cities, three main pillars appear to prop up the imagined ‘pro-Putin’ social contract: (i) the belief that ‘delegating’ all power into the hands of the President is the best way to discipline and mould state and society; (ii) …
On Stalin’s Team. The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics
On Stalin’s Team. The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics." Europe-Asia Studies, 68(9), pp. 1608–1609
Systemic and Non-Systemic Opposition in the Russian Federation. Civil Society Awakens
Systemic and Non-Systemic Opposition in the Russian Federation. Civil Society Awakens?." Europe-Asia Studies, 68(6), pp. 1077–1078
Discourses of Russian-speaking youth in Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan: Soviet legacies and responses to nation-building
Research into post-independence identity shifts among Kazakhstan’s Russian-speaking minorities has outlined a number of possible pathways, such as diasporization, integrated national minority status and ethnic separatism. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with young people in Almaty and Karaganda, I examine how Russian-speaking minorities identify with the state and imagine their place in a ‘soft’ or ‘hybrid’ post-Soviet authoritarian system.…
Political Legitimacy in Contemporary Russia ‘from Below’: ‘Pro-Putin’ Stances, the Normative Split and Imagining Two Russias
This paper explores how urban Russians perceive, negotiate, challenge and reaffirm the political configuration of the country and leadership in terms of the ‘imagined nation’. Based on around 100 interviews in three Russian cities, three main pillars appear to prop up the imagined ‘pro-Putin’ social contract: (i) the belief that ‘delegating’ all power into the hands of the President is the best way to discipline and mould state and society; (ii) …
Toward Nationalizing Regimes: Conceptualizing Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm by Diana T. Kudaibergenova
Reviewed by: Toward Nationalizing Regimes: Conceptualizing Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm by Diana T. Kudaibergenova Matthew Blackburn (bio) Diana T. Kudaibergenova, Toward Nationalizing Regimes: Conceptualizing Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm. 240 pp. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020. ISBN 9780822946175. Diana T. Kudaibergenova’s monograph is a welcome contribution to the study of nation-building, nationa…
The persistence of the civic–ethnic binary: Competing visions of the nation and civilization in western, Central and Eastern Europe
The normative binary of ‘good-progressive’ and ‘bad-retrograde’ nationalism, traceable to the civic and ethnic dichotomy, is alive and well in studies of nationalism and populism today. This article underlines the insufficiency of this approach, firstly by examining three stances on the civic nation in the West, each of which rejects ethnic nationalism and reflect different fundamental concerns. Moving east, in Central Europe the binary is invert…
Mainstream Russian Nationalism and the “State-Civilization” Identity: Perspectives from Below
Based on more than 100 interviews in European Russia, this article sheds light on the bottom-up dynamics of Russian nationalism. After offering a characterization of the post-2012 “state-civilization” discourse from above, I examine how ordinary people imagine Russia as a “state-civilization.” Interview narratives of inclusion into the nation are found to overlap with state discourse on three main lines: (1) ethno-nationalism is rejected, and Rus…
Parade, plebiscite, pandemic: Legitimation efforts in Putin’s fourth term
Putin’s fourth term as president (2018–2024) has involved new challenges for Russia’s hybrid regime. COVID-19 hit the Kremlin at a sensitive time, when the old institutional forces had been demounted and new arrangements, including extensive constitutional changes, had yet to become cemented. There is an emerging gulf between state rhetoric, PR events, and patriotic performances, on the one hand, and economic chaos, social disorder and dysfunctio…
Cheering and Jeering on the Escalator to Hell: One Year of UK Media Coverage on the War in Ukraine
While there is a common awareness of wartime media censorship in both Ukraine and Russia, there has been less research on Western media coverage and expert analysis of the war in Ukraine. This essay considers the extent to which a skewed and partisan version of the war’s evolution has been presented in UK media. Five stages are identified in the emergence and evolution of a British meta-narrative on the war in Ukraine, replete with ‘cheering’ and…
Pragmatism and protest: Russia’s communist party through Covid-19 and beyond
The Covid-19 epidemic came at a sensitive time for Russia’s leadership, which was attempting a political reset and structural reforms, including the removal of President Putin’s presidential term limits. This article examines how issues related to the pandemic provided new opportunities for the systemic opposition, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, who emerged as the main beneficiaries after capitalising on opportunities created by t…
Introduction to the Special Issue on Under Communism’s Shadow
Perhaps no topic could be more crucial to the concept of “post-communism” than how the Soviet past is commemorated, challenged, or forgotten. The study of historical memory is often correctly tied to identity politics and nation-building. While the usable past framework is broadly applicable to all modern states, in the Russian case a degree of alarmism and negativity surrounds interpretations of how the country has managed its communist past, pa…
The morphology of Putinism: The Arrangement of Political Concepts Into a Coherent Ideology
Scholarly analysis has been divided as to whether Putinism is a coherent ideology. With the decision to invade Ukraine, this question requires reexamination. This article interprets the evolution of Putinism in morphological terms, tracing how political concepts developed into a distinctive ‘thin’ ideology. After interpreting the original formation of Putinism (2000–2012), I unpack how interlinked processes of securitization and culturization res…
Escaping the Long Shadow of Homo Sovieticus
It is often asserted that the values and attitudes of Homo Sovieticus, marked in the rising “popularity” of Stalin, live on in contemporary Russia, acting as a negative factor in social and political development. This article critiques the argument that attitudes to Stalin reflect unreformed Soviet values and explain Russia’s authoritarian regression and failed modernization. Our critique of this legacy argument has three parts. First, after exam…
Reacting to a geopolitical setback: Nato expansion in Sweden and Finland through the lens of Russian geopolitical culture
The accession of Sweden and Finland to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is typically seen as a serious geopolitical setback for Russia, the opposite of its goals to limit the alliance’s spread eastwards. In contrast to Moscow’s stances on Ukraine and Georgia, however, its reaction to NATO’s Nordic expansion is more ambiguous. This article uses the framework of critical geopolitics to analyse several layers of Russia’s discursive reaction…
The Battle for Russia’s Rebirth: Interpreting Pro-War Critical Patriotism and Imperial-Nationalism on Telegram
The Putin regime has developed an ambiguous relationship with Russian nationalism, which has been both a threat and a resource to the maintenance of its power. With the launch of the “Special Military Operation,” Russia’s national-patriot groups increased their profile as commentators on – and critics of – the war effort. This article analyses their content on Telegram – whose use has exploded inside Russia – and maps the discourses of this reinv…
Nationalism, populism, and political community: Alexei Navalny’s legacy amid the crisis of liberal globalism
Weaving together theories of political community and social imaginaries with the idea that populism and nationalism anchor the democratic principles of political representation and popular sovereignty in the modern state, this essay reexamines Alexei Navalny’s political trajectory and its implications at a time when illiberal forces are gaining ground. Tracing Navalny’s attempts to combine liberalism, populism, and nationalism, it interprets this…
Politics (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Political economy (8 works) · Eastern European Communism and Reforms (7 works) · Soviet and Russian History (5 works) · State (computer science (5 works) · European and Russian Geopolitical Military Strategies (4 works)