Assessing Putin's Foreign Policy: Diversionary Force and Social Cohesion in 21st Century Russia

Abstract

Scholars who study leaders’ motivation to deploy military force abroad blame either international conditions, signaling a realist motivation, or domestic conditions, signaling a diversionary motivation. Studies on diversion divide over the motivations of autocrats and democrats and whether the goal of diversion is to reinforce leader competence or to generate a rallying effect through social cohesion. This thesis examines these questions with specific regard to Vladimir Putin’s aggressive foreign policy in twenty-first century Russia. Putin engages in large-scale, risky military disputes despite his entrenched leadership and risks potentially losing power if he fails—a common theme that runs through Russian and Soviet history. His superpresidentialist regime does not fit the scope of previous studies; it holds universal elections but grants the president autocratic powers. Because the Russian Federation was born a democracy, Putin relies on a guise of democracy to legitimize his power to the public. Therefore, this thesis hypothesizes that Putin takes diversionary risks in his foreign policy to divert public attention from autocratic acts. He will employ diversion in response to mass unrest, especially liberal protest, will aim to increase social cohesion amongst the multiethnic Russian state, and will identify the West and its liberal democracy as social outgroups to reduce its influence in Russia’s sphere.

The thesis tests these hypotheses through quantitative and qualitative methods. First, it identifies Putin’s diversionary motivation using linear regression models to test the effect of domestic factors on Russian-instigated militarized interstate disputes and hostility. Using a second set of linear models, it discerns Putin’s goal by measuring the effect of the Russia and the target state’s relative power and social salience based on its historical and geographical relationship. Finally, the thesis offers a qualitative examination of Putin’s rhetoric, Russian state media coverage, and the conditions surrounding the major uses of force abroad to determine how Putin effectively identifies universally salient in groups and outgroups in a socially and nationalistically divided Russia.

The quantitative results confirm that intrastate unrest drives Putin to deploy force abroad, proving a diversionary motivation. Putin also selects socially salient targets, typically former Soviet states or historic adversaries, demonstrating his goal to increase social cohesion. The qualitative study reiterates how Putin develops social cohesion despite the divides and finds that the most significant uses of force happened in conjunction with domestic and international events that threatened the Russian guise of democracy. The results show that Putin is threatened by public protest, particularly when the public image of democracy is weak. He uses foreign policy as a way to divert attention from his autocratic behavior and bridge potentially dangerous social divides. The thesis concludes that Putin uses Russian foreign policy to divert when the public perceives his leadership as highly undemocratic with the aim of creating an ingroup that crosscuts Russian social divides and a Western, liberal outgroup. With the ability to better predict when and where Putin may direct Russian aggression next, it may be possible to subvert his aim to deny states in Russia’s sphere of influence the choice of developing a liberal democratic system or joining Western alliances.