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Paul Goode (@jpaulgoode.bsky.social) Profile picture
Paul Goode (@jpaulgoode.bsky.social)
@jpaulgoode
Russia, Eurasia, nationalism, autocracy. Editor of @cpcs_journal. Project director @RuMOR_CarletonU. McMillan Chair of Russian Studies @EURUSCarletonU.
2 subscribers
Nov 30 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
My response (open access!) to this essay by Sarty: "Misreading Russia" is the latest in the tradition of "getting Russia wrong," in which the West worries incessantly about all the things it made Russia do by not understanding it.

A not-so-short 🧵

doi.org/10.22215/cjers… x.com/cjers_journal/… 2/ The most obvious point is that no serious person would argue that you don't need an appreciation of a country's history and culture to make good policy, Russia included. But it's a mistake to say that war in Ukraine resulted from the West's failure to appreciate Russia.
Feb 16 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Navalny will be remembered as a martyr, but he left a significant imprint on Russian politics and our understanding of how autocracies work (and don't work). Here's a short sampling of how Navalny's been studied in academic research: 1/ 2/ Plenty has been written on Navalny’s nationalism, but more important was his transformation into an anti-corruption populist & the “oppositional mirror image of Putin.” It made him effective. It’s also why he was distrusted by so many outside Russia.
dx.doi.org/10.1080/096681…
Sep 17, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Having monitored Russia's war narratives since the invasion began, one thing is puzzling: some narratives quickly faded from broadcast media, yet remain in active circulation. How?

A short 🧵on the double lives of Russia's war narratives (aka my #APSA2022 paper) 1/9 (For background on previous findings from both federal and regional broadcast media, you can check out this earlier thread):

2/9
Jul 2, 2022 • 20 tweets • 7 min read
Russian Media Observation update: now including regional broadcast media!

TL;DR version:

🔹🇷🇺 TV settled into a monthly cadence of existential enemies, sanctions, and liberation.

🔹🇷🇺 regional media mentions Ukraine a LOT, but everything else is background noise.

1/20 All data are from Integrum Profi broadcast transcripts. For 🇷🇺 tv, we looked at 4 federal channels (1tv, NTV, Rossiia 1, TV Tsentr).

For regional media, we selected 225 radio & tv broadcasters. Note that we only have data through mid-May b/c of lag with transcripts.
2/20
Jun 24, 2022 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Russian media observation update:

In my last 🧵, I showed how Russians were seeing less of the war on TV while war narratives reduced over time to NATO, Nazis, and humanitarian corridors.

But, who is Russia "liberating" from NATO and Nazis?
1/13
One of the ways that Russian TV talks about the war without calling it a war is by referring instead to territories in Ukraine as "liberated" - as in, liberated from Nazis, nationalists, and NATO.

The term is used a LOT, but how the term is used is particularly revealing. 2/13 Image
Jun 17, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Navalny's FBK team released new survey results looking at economic activity as a way to gauge actual support for the war in Russia. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the picture is rather depressing.

A few highlights follow in this short🧵1/7
First, additional spending on the war isn't a priority: only 7% said they would devote additional budget resources to the war.

Pensions and health care remain at the forefront of most Russian's minds, not NATO. 2/7
Jun 8, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Russian media observation update: we see a lot of tweets about notorious talk show propagandists, but what are most Russians seeing on television?

This might surprise you, but the answer is more of the same about Ukraine, but a lot less about NATO and the West.
1/10 Let's start with Russia's declared war aims of "demilitarization" and "denazification" of Ukraine. These already dropped off viewers' televisions by April, with barely any mention since.

So what are the ways the war is presented and justified? 2/10
Mar 30, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
A lot is being made of the @levada_ru survey showing 83% support for Putin as evidence of popular support for the war. Now, polling in Russia is highly fraught right now, as @russophiliac, @Krawatzek & others have observed. But one part gives me pause: just 44% trust Putin. 1/7 Is this strange? In March 2014, trust (71%) and approval (80% - not pictured) moved together after Crimea. There was a gap (about 9%) between the two, but they were closely matched. So what accounts for the 39% gap in today's poll between public approval and trust in Putin? 2/7
Mar 30, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Russia's shifting war narratives update: after incorporating additional topics discussed in @HannaNotte's 🧵on similarities b/t Russia's campaigns in Ukraine and Syria, we start to see some stabilization around 3 clusters of war topics on Russian TV.
1/5
 Tier 1, enemies & victims: Nazis/fascists, foreign fighters (mercenaries & terrorists), and humanitarian corridors;

Tier 2, treachery: human shields, CBWs, Nuclear weapons, and Kosovo/Yugoslavia references; and

Tier 3, legitimation: genocide and information warfare.
2/5
Mar 25, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
A few updates on Russia's domestic propaganda. As before, data are drawn from Russian TV broadcast transcripts.

1. In the ever-shifting narratives of war, Russian TV doubled down on Nazis & fascists last week. Mentions of bio weapons, info war, nukes & genocide dwindled. 1/4 2. Russian TV is erasing Zelenskyy from view and filling the space with Ukrainian nationalists. Obviously de-humanizing the enemy, perhaps preparing the Russian public for even greater loss of life and for belt tightening. On that score... 2/4
Mar 9, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Last week, I made a short thread to document the Kremlin's use of TV to prime the public for the invasion of Ukraine. I keep getting asked what Russians are seeing on TV and how this informs their world views, so let's dig a little deeper. 1/8
How impactful is a topic’s mention on Russian TV vs “normal” reporting? To set a baseline for “normal,” I used weather reports on each channel and then calculated topic mentions relative to the weather. It’s a rough measure, sacrificing some rigor and nuance, but it's fast. 2/8
Mar 4, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
A lot of us hoped this war would end quickly, and a lot was riding on how things would play out in Russia's domestic politics. Unfortunately, the grounds for pessimism have only increased with time.
This is an aggregation 🧵 that gathers some of my thoughts on this war. 1/4 First, it quickly became clear that Russia was expecting Crimea 2.0, not a protracted, grinding war. There are reasons for this miscalculation, but the upshot is that the Kremlin doesn't have an "off-ramp" to the war it started so it is doubling-down. 2/4
Mar 4, 2022 • 6 tweets • 11 min read
I've gained a lot of new followers over the last week so I'm re-upping this list of experts on Ukraine, and adding a few more: @emm_mateo @globalrhizome @o_haran @skudelia @olgatokariuk @Mylovanov @IAPonomarenko @dobczansky @snitsova @VolodymDubovyk @brik_t For Russia: @bdtaylor_SU @Ben_H_Noble @samagreene @kath_stoner @TomilaLankina @russmil @Chapman_HannahS @jademcglynn122 @forrat @NoYardstick @russophiliac @PreciousChatD @NKuhrt @ruth_deyermond @jgmaber @Krawatzek @JanMattiD @RTPerson3 @yoshikoherrera
Mar 1, 2022 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Everyone keeps asking what's motivating Russia in this war. Now, TV is the primary means by which most Russians get their news. It's largely state controlled, making it useful to examine justifications for war, so I looked at 5 channels since Putin's December ultimatums. 1/14 All data is from Integrum's tv broadcast transcripts for Dec 13-Feb 27. I included Pervyi Kanal, Rossiia 1, NTV, Moscow's TV Tsentr. Also included is the independent Dozhd channel as a check on whether a topic might have broader resonance & not just Kremlin talking point. 2/14
Feb 28, 2022 • 8 tweets • 6 min read
Dear colleagues, I'm compiling a list of resources and initiatives that can help scholars and students who are in need of support or rescue, because of war, displacement, or repression. I will keep updating this thread and please feel free to add your own ideas. See if your college or faculty can adopt emergency graduate admissions for displaced scholars. Note that this is likely to be very expensive and so might require external funding for many institutions:
Feb 26, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
No outcome is certain, but seems increasingly likely that Russia got into a war it didn't expect. This seems particularly strange, given that nobody should have better intel on Ukraine than Russia. How can we explain it? A short(ish), speculative 🧵: 1/13 Observers have noted for years that Putin's Russia prefers "easy" wars. Grozny was shelled, avoiding the urban warfare of the 1990s. Georgia 2008 was over in 5 days. Crimea's annexation was quick & bloodless in part b/c Ukraine ordered troops to stand down. 2/13
Feb 24, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
I want to take a beat to discuss how to understand elite support for Putin’s war. Looking at images from Putin’s Security Council or today’s meeting with oligarchs, it’s pretty clear they are not happy campers. So why do they stand by Putin? THREAD 1/13 Putin’s regime is a personalist autocracy, meaning that it's highly dependent upon personal networks that sustain authoritarian rule by granting subordinates access to patronage, usually in the form of jobs, resources, or status. 2/13
Feb 24, 2022 • 4 tweets • 5 min read
For anyone looking for expertise on Ukraine, some accounts to follow (in no particular order, and not an exhaustive list): @OxanaShevel @darelasn @UmlandAndreas @TarasKuzio @JohnVsetecka @PopovaProf @steven_seegel @snitsova @oonuch @ksvarnon @terrelljstarr @channelljustice Ukrainian official accounts:
@ZelenskyyUa Ukraine's President
@UKRinUN Ukrainian Mission to UN
@DI_Ukraine Defense Intel
@NSDC_ua Nat'l Security and Defense Council
@DefenceU Min of Defense
@MFA_Ukraine Min of Foreign Affairs
@GeneralStaffUA General Staff of Armed Forces
Apr 2, 2021 • 13 tweets • 7 min read
🚨 New publication alert! 🚨

In this article, I ask why the elite debate and public campaign for the nationwide vote on Putin’s constitutional reforms last year were dominated by social and patriotic issues rather than politics? 1/

brill.com/view/journals/… 2/ The answer has to do with the ways that patriotism acts as a form of legitimation in Russian politics, regulating competition among elites, determining the boundaries of acceptable public politics, and providing access to regime patronage.

cambridge.org/core/journals/…