how nationalism and machine politics mix in russiaattachment to the United Russia party, a political vehicle he
created that absorbed the Fatherland–All Russia coalition (Colton
and Hale 2009, 2014).
These same studies, however, have found little evidence that
his public appeal has been based strongly on nationalistic ideas,
or at least that these views have been what distinguishes him in
Russian eyes from other politicians, the vast majority of whom
voice views that are at least as strongly nationalistic as Putin’s.
People who said they cast ballots for him, for example, did not
stand out for particularly anti- Western views. In fact, Putin was
seen as a relatively pro- Western candidate in the Russian context;
he was widely interpreted as someone who wanted cooperation
with the West, but guardedly and on Russia’s own terms. This
contrasted with the public positions of Russia’s most broadly
supported alternative politicians and parties, almost all of which
took more radical stands on foreign policy and ethnic politics
than did Putin. This includes the Communist Party of the Russian
Federation, Vladimir Zhirinovskii’s Liberal Democratic Party of
Russia and the A Just Russia party, and even some self- avowedly
liberal leaders of the street protest movement, such as Aleksei
Navalnyi (Colton and Hale 2009, 2014).
Whatever its source, this strong public support helped the
Kremlin weather the presidential succession of 2008, when Putin
ceded the presidency to his close associate Dmitrii Medvedev and
occupied the prime ministership himself. Putin had long said that
he would step away from the presidency at the end of his second
term rather than attempt to change the constitution so as to allow
himself a third one, and, as expected, great tensions arose within
the regime during the run- up to the handoff. Different groups vied
to influence the succession process, and some evidently to con-
vince Putin himself to stay on (Sakwa 2011a). With Putin enjoy-
ing extremely high approval ratings, regularly as high as 60 to 80
per cent, it became clear that whomever he endorsed would have
an enormous advantage even in a completely free and fair elec-
tion. This helped ensure that he survived his lame duck period,
as elites saw it as unpromising to cast their lots with someone
who would not get this endorsement. Thus when Putin finally
announced that Medvedev was his choice, done at nearly the last