Putinism beyond Putin: the political ideas of Nikolai Patrushev and Sergei Naryshkin in 2006–20

ABSTRACT This essay adds to previous research of Putinism an investigation of the political thought and foreign outlooks of Russia’s Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev and Head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergei Naryshkin, with a focus on their statements between 2006 to 2020. The paper outlines Patrushev’s and Naryshkin’s thoughts regarding the United States, Ukraine, and the idea of multipolarity/polycentrism. We then introduce Patrushev’s critique of liberal values and color revolutions, and Naryshkin’s statements on the memory of World War II and Western institutions. The salience of these altogether seven topics is interpreted with reference to three classical topoi in Russian political thought: the Slavophile vs. Westerners controversy, the single-stream theory, and the civilizational paradigm. Our conclusions inform the ongoing debate on whether to conceptualize Putinism as either an ideology or a mentality.