Blogging for the Sake of the President: The Online-Diaries of Russian Governors

Europe-Asia Studies, Volume 64, Number 8, 1 October 2012 , pp. 1435-1459(25)

40 Pages Posted: 20 Mar 2012 Last revised: 4 Jul 2014

See all articles by Florian Toepfl

Florian Toepfl

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE)

Date Written: January 15, 2012

Abstract

Many western researchers have hailed blogs of politicians as new, interactive, and ‘inherently democratic’ tools of political communication. Yet, as this chapter illustrates, blogs can be of comparatively even greater appeal to politicians in semi-authoritarian political contexts: In Russia, 29 out of 83 regional leaders (roughly 35 %) were keeping a weblog in May 2010. This chapter accomplishes a comprehensive content analysis of all governors’ blogs and, subsequently, fleshes out a typology of three characteristic types. In conclusion, it is argued that politicians’ blogs are playing a far greater role in generating legitimacy for the Russian political system than they do in democracies, because the semi-authoritarian Russian system lacks other mechanisms which generate (input) legitimacy in developed democracies, such as highly competitive elections.

Keywords: blogs, Russia, political communication, internet, social media

Suggested Citation

Toepfl, Florian, Blogging for the Sake of the President: The Online-Diaries of Russian Governors (January 15, 2012). Europe-Asia Studies, Volume 64, Number 8, 1 October 2012 , pp. 1435-1459(25), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2025844

Florian Toepfl (Contact Author)

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) ( email )

Houghton Street
London, WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom

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