This project sheds light on the emergence and use of the trope of ‘threatened traditional values’ in Russia as a means of framing aggression as prevention.

The trope has become a standard feature of official Russian discourse since at least 2012. It was also mobilised to justify the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a preventive strike in order to stop a perversive Western ‘gender ideology’ from spilling over into Russia.

This, coupled with several other efforts by Russia to fight the expansion of progressive gender norms and even reverse them at multilateral level, suggests that the anti-gender backlash fulfils a larger strategic purpose in order to achieve certain foreign policy objectives. To test this hypothesis, the project looks systematically at when and how anti-gender narratives have been employed in Russian official discourse around critical junctures of aggressive foreign policy since president Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000.

• Collection of relevant speeches by Russian president Vladimir Putin to domestic and foreign audiences
• Quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis of speeches
• Triangulation with Duma transcripts

• Is the backlash against progressive gender norms in Russian official discourse constant or can we discern peaks in its intensity around military operations?
• Is the anti-gender backlash an accessory of authoritarianism or instrumental in justifying Russia’s aggressive foreign policy?

Dr. Leandra Bias
Research Affiliate