Authors

Discussion

Flexible authoritarianism—a form of government that simultaneously incentivizes a can-do spirit and suppresses dissent—reflects the resonance between authoritarian and neoliberal ideologies in Russia, but also concerning today's comeback of strongman rule more generally. Precisely because the concept has been developed through the Russian example, the full-blown war on Ukraine poses the question how flexible the regime, the order underlying political and economic life, still is given the severe increase in suppression and punishment of dissent. How is the autocratic paradox, the need to stimulate civic engagement while maintaining strict control to stabilize the current distribution of political and economic power, met in the government’s popular cultural legitimation strategies? How do artists respond to the dilemma to self-promote their art in novel ways to survive economically, while catering to the government through signaling their support or toleration of authoritarian practices and the sabotage of accountability? Given the difficulty to conduct offline ethnographic and interview research in Russia today, the paper draws on online observations of concerts and artists’ social media pages as well as on public political spectacles staged by government agencies to celebrate the annexations of Ukrainian territories.