(Monkey Cage) During the covid-19 crisis, Russia’s authoritarianism is on full display. Surveillance technologies, global power plays, misinformation and government propaganda make easy fodder for critics of Russia’s coronavirus response. But Russia’s approach shares much in common with the United States. These similarities may make Russia more relatable than Winston Churchill’s famous assessment of it as a “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”
In my work on Russia’s immigration policy, I argue that policymakers sometimes frame issues as crises in order to solve unrelated problems or to mobilize certain ideas. Other work on Russia reveals that crisis response can produce benefits such as electoral gains, but it doesn’t always achieve intended aims and may lead to perpetual crisis cycles. […]
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