Guns to butter: sociotropic concerns and foreign policy preferences in Russia

Maria Snegovaya

Post-Soviet Affairs, 2020, vol. 36, issue 3, 268-279

Abstract: On the concept of “rally around the flag,” scholars often argue that by invoking the danger of external threats in times of economic hardship, leaders can rally the public around the government in a way that would otherwise be impossible. Alternative streams of literature suggest that a darkening economic reality (“butter”) may weaken the impact of patriotic euphoria (“guns”). I conducted an experimental survey to measure changes in foreign policy preferences among respondents exposed to negative economic primes in Russia. In line with the earlier findings on this topic, my analysis shows that participants who encounter negative economic primes report significantly less support for assertive foreign policy narratives. These results suggest that continuing economic strain may limit the Kremlin’s ability to divert public attention from internal problems through the use of assertive rhetoric.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1060586X.2020.1750912 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rpsaxx:v:36:y:2020:i:3:p:268-279

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rpsa20

DOI: 10.1080/1060586X.2020.1750912

Access Statistics for this article

Post-Soviet Affairs is currently edited by Timothy Frye

More articles in Post-Soviet Affairs from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().