The Co-optation of Dissent in Hybrid States: Post-Soviet Graffiti in Moscow

• Author: Alexis M. Lerner
• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Date: 01 September 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0010414019879949
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414019879949

Comparative Political Studies

© The Author(s) 2019

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0010414019879949

journals.sagepub.com/home/cps

Article

The Co-optation of

Dissent in Hybrid States:

Post-Soviet Graffiti in

Moscow

Alexis M. Lerner1

Abstract

Hybrid leaders seek job security. To stay in power, it may be intuitive that

they respond to dissent with a heavy hand. However, these leaders are

subject to accountability and concerned with legitimacy and therefore must

consider the optics of their decisions. By co-opting a previously independent

avenue of communication and its leadership, the state eliminates challengers,

curates its public image through trusted social leaders, and reinforces

control without resorting to repressive methods that may backfire. Based

on a decade of fieldwork, data collection, and expert interviews, I evidence

the co-optation of dissent via thematic, spatial, and material shifts in political

public art, crafted between the 2012 and 2018 Russian presidential elections.

As it consolidated power during this time, the Putin administration co-opted

critical graffiti artists and flooded out those unwilling to cooperate, replacing

subversive and anonymous anti-regime graffiti with Kremlin-curated murals,

particularly in the city center.

Keywords

dissent management, protest, street art, Russia, Putin

1The University of Toronto and Columbia University, New York City, USA

Corresponding Author:

Alexis M. Lerner, Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies,

Columbia University, 420 W. 118th Street, 12th Floor Mail Code 3345, New York,

NY 10027-7256, USA.

Email: Alexis.Lerner@mail.utoronto.ca

879949CPSXXX10.1177/0010414019879949Comparative Political StudiesLerner

research-article2019

2021, Vol. 54(10) 1757 –1785

1758 Comparative Political Studies 54(10)

2 Comparative Political Studies 00(0)

Introduction

In 2014, street artist Stew Lus painted a legendary Russian phoenix rising

from its ashes, a symbolic reference not lost on Muscovite passersby.1 Shown

in Figure 1, the phoenix is painted in the socialist realist style prevalent in the

Soviet Union, with a long neck that cranes diagonally toward the upper, right-

hand corner of the six-story building’s façade. Its head is enveloped in a

white halo of light, as were the folkloric icons of centuries before. Joining

scores of patriotic murals dotting the city since President Vladimir Putin’s,

2012 election, Stew Lus’ artwork was paid for, and approved by, the Russian

government.2

An authoritarian leader is an expert at controlling the public sphere

(Habermas, 2006). Generally, this manifests through the elimination of

activists from positions of power and the censorship of contentious and

Figure 1. Russian firebird rising from its ashes.

Source. Painted by Stew Lus. Moscow. Photo by the author, November 2016.