Researcher
Matthew Blackburn
Contactinfo and files
Summary
Matthew Blackburn is a Senior Researcher in NUPI's Research Group on Russia, Asia and International Trade. His main research agenda addresses politics in Russia and Eurasia, including both domestic politics and interstate relations. He has researched political legitimation and popular responses to state discourses, with a particular focus on how regimes mobilise on the ideational level and cope with the challenges of nationalist and populist opposition. He also researches subnational variation in Russian society and regional politics, and studies how contemporary political systems evolve, alternating between periods of stabilisation, normalisation and mobilisation.
He is currently developing project proposals on comparative politics, and new competition for influence among the former-Soviet states in light of the war in Ukraine.
He is also an affiliated researcher at the Institute of Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University.
Expertise
Education
2018 PhD, (Russian and East European Studies Programme) University of Glasgow.
2013 International Masters in Russian and Eastern European Studies and International Relations, Glasgow University and KIMEP University (Almaty
Work Experience
2023- Senior Researcher, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)
2021-2023 Ulam Research Fellow, University of Warsaw
2018-2021 Postdoctoral researcher, Institute of Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University
Aktivitet
Filter
Clear all filtersNUPI’s Russia Conference 2024
NUPI’s Russia conference 2024: Wartime Russia – weak or strong?
Join us on 22 October for the annual Russia conference.
Norway and Romania: Navigating Information Warfare
The study "Norway and Romania: Navigating Information Warfare" explores the use of disinformation, propaganda, and interference to manipulate public discourse amid the Ukraine war. It discusses how these tactics exploit historical and border sensitivities to delegitimize Ukraine and distract from the global economic impacts of Russian aggression. The research highlights how such strategies shift blame and reshape international perceptions favorably towards Russia. The study analyzes how Russian political warfare manifests itself in both Norway and Romania, dwelling on the particularities of each country. This study is one of deliverables of the FLANKS II project conducted jointly by New Strategy Center in Romania and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) in Oslo.
The Russian model of Federalism: Are Centre-Region dynamics changing in Wartime?
How has Russia’s war against Ukraine affected centre-regions relations in Russia?
Myths in the Russian Collective Memory: The “Golden Era” of Pre-Revolutionary Russia and the “Disaster of 1917”
This paper examines shared ideas, values and interpretations of the past in the “collective memory” of the 1917 October Revolution. Employing a qualitative approach to examine collective memory “from below,” two age cohorts were interviewed in three Russian cities from a variety of social groups in 2014–2015. What was revealed was the existence of a strong positive myth about the pre-revolutionary era of 1900–1914, as well as positive references to the current Putin era. Both eras were “positive” in that Russia was/is a “normal European power,” “on the rise economically” and “respected by the other powers.” In terms of the definitive national trauma, an overwhelming majority viewed the 1917 October Revolution as a break or rupture in Russian history that caused appalling destruction. This view of 1917 as catastrophic leads to certain key “lessons”: that revolutionary change is inherently destructive and wasteful and that external forces had (and have) a vested interest in weakening Russia from without whenever she is at her most vulnerable. Overall, at the heart of myths over 1917 we find a central occupation with the threat of disintegration and a yearning for stability and normality, highlighting how collective memory interacts with political values and social identity.
Discourses of Russian-speaking youth in Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan: Soviet Legacies and Responses to Nation-building
Research into post-independence identity shifts among Kazakhstan’s Russian-speaking minorities has outlined a number of possible pathways, such as diasporization, integrated national minority status and ethnic separatism. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with young people in Almaty and Karaganda, I examine how Russian-speaking minorities identify with the state and imagine their place in a ‘soft’ or ‘hybrid’ post-Soviet authoritarian system. What is found is that Russian-speaking minorities largely accept their status beneath the Kazakh ‘elder brother’ and do not wish to identify as a ‘national minority’. Furthermore, they affirm passive loyalty to the political status quo while remaining disinterested in political representation. Russian-speaking minorities are also ambivalent towards Kazakh language promotion and anxious about the increasing presence of Kazakh-speakers in urban spaces. This article argues that two factors are central to these stances among Kazakhstan’s Russian-speaking minorities: the persistence of Soviet legacies and the effects of state discourse and policy since 1991.
Mainstream Russian Nationalism and the “State- Civilization” Identity: Perspectives “from below”
Based on more than 100 interviews in European Russia, this article sheds light on the bottom-up dynamics of Russian nationalism. After offering a characterization of the post-2012 “state-civilization” discourse from above, I examine how ordinary people imagine Russia as a “state-civilization.” Interview narratives of inclusion into the nation are found to overlap with state discourse on three main lines: (1) ethno-nationalism is rejected, and Russia is imagined to be a unique, harmonious multi-ethnic space in which the Russians (russkie) lead without repressing the others; (2) Russia’s multinationalism is remembered in myths of peaceful interactions between Russians (russkie) and indigenous ethnic groups (korennyye narodi) across the imperial and Soviet past; (3) Russian culture and language are perceived as the glue that holds together a unified category of nationhood. Interview narratives on exclusion deviate from state discourse in two key areas: attitudes to the North Caucasus reveal the geopolitical-security, post-imperial aspect of the “state-civilization” identity, while stances toward non-Slavic migrants in city spaces reveal a degree of “cultural nationalism” that, while sharing characteristics with those of Western Europe, is also based on Soviet-framed notions of normality. Overall, the article contributes to debates on how Soviet legacies and Russia’s post-imperial consciousness play out in the context of the “pro-Putin consensus.”
Political Legitimacy in Contemporary Russia ‘from Below’: ‘Pro-Putin’ Stances, the Normative Split and Imagining Two Russias
This paper explores how urban Russians perceive, negotiate, challenge and reaffirm the political configuration of the country and leadership in terms of the ‘imagined nation’. Based on around 100 interviews in three Russian cities, three main pillars appear to prop up the imagined ‘pro-Putin’ social contract: (i) the belief that ‘delegating’ all power into the hands of the President is the best way to discipline and mould state and society; (ii) the acceptance of Putin’s carefully crafted image as a ‘real man’, juxtaposed against negative views of the Russian ‘national character’; (iii) the internalization of a pro-Putin mythology on a ‘government of saviors’ that delivers normality and redeems a ‘once-ruined’ nation. The paper shows that those who reject these pillars do so due to differing views on what constitutes ‘normality’ in politics. This normative split is examined over a number of issues, leading to a discussion of internal orientalism and the limited success of state media agitation in winning over the skeptical.
Parade, Plebiscite, Pandemic: Legitimation Efforts in Putin’s Fourth Term
Putin’s fourth term as president (2018–2024) has involved new challenges for Russia’s hybrid regime. COVID-19 hit the Kremlin at a sensitive time, when the old institutional forces had been demounted and new arrangements, including extensive constitutional changes, had yet to become cemented. There is an emerging gulf between state rhetoric, PR events, and patriotic performances, on the one hand, and economic chaos, social disorder and dysfunctional state capacity, on the other, which is likely to reduce system legitimacy and cause increased reliance on repressive methods. This article examines Kremlin legitimation efforts across Beetham’s three dimensions: rules, beliefs, and actions. We argue that the regime’s legitimation efforts in 2020–21 have failed to reverse emerging cleavages in public opinion since 2018. Increased reliance on repression and manipulation in this period, combined with the contrast between regime promises and observable realities on the ground, speak not of strength, but of the Kremlin’s increased weakness and embattlement.
The Persistence of the Civic-Ethnic binary: Competing Visions of the Nation and Civilisation in Western Central and Eastern Europe
The normative binary of ‘good-progressive’ and ‘bad-retrograde’ nationalism, traceable to the civic and ethnic dichotomy, is alive and well in studies of nationalism and populism today. This article underlines the insufficiency of this approach, firstly by examining three stances on the civic nation in the West, each of which rejects ethnic nationalism and reflect different fundamental concerns. Moving east, in Central Europe the binary is inverted and turned against ‘liberal cosmopolitans’; in Russia, the Kremlin’s ‘state-civilization’ project can be viewed as a distinct trend in nation-building for non-Western contemporary great powers.