To Speak or Stay Silent? Russian Migrants in Norway and the Dilemma of Political Protest during the War in Ukraine

Introduction

In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, large-scale peace demonstrations condemning the war were organised by broad civil society coalitions across Europe. Shock and disapproval were also recorded among Russian migrants, some of whom organised transnationally coordinated protests condemning the Russian authorities and the war in Ukraine (Bygnes, 2025). However, the scope of pro-democratic political activities organised by Russian migrants in Europe remains relatively limited, particularly in Scandinavia (Fomina, 2021; Stevnhøj, 2023).

Since social movement scholars (Jasper and Poulsen, 1995) launched the idea that ‘moral shocks’ can mobilise people to political participation and protest, political shocks have been understood as significant to the political mobilisation of migrants because strong emotions can recruit people who were previously not involved in politics (Baser, 2014; Kliuchnikova, 2013; Sökefeld, 2006; Stevnhøj, 2023). We know much less about migrants who describe feelings akin to a moral shock in the wake of a political event, but do not involve themselves in political protest. To investigate this, we compared interview narratives of Russian migrants in Norway who participated in anti-war protests with interview narratives of interviewees who self-identified as ‘outside of politics’. We examined variations in the frames of interpretation (Goffman, 1974), as articulated in the interviews, to understand how they inform reactions to stay away from, or get involved in, political protest.

For several decades, sociologists have studied the rejection of ‘the political’ from various perspectives and contexts (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2001; Norgaard, 2006; Pilkington and Pollock, 2015). Alongside such ‘disavowal of the political’ (Bennett et al., 2013), the presence of smaller- and large-scale protest waves, and other forms of collective action or human rights advocacy, is another important part of many people’s experienced reality, and is also present in contexts where apoliticism has been foregrounded (Clément and Zhelnina, 2020; Dollbaum, 2020; Hensby, 2017; Lam-Knott, 2018; Morris et al., 2023).

In this article, we ask how references to political and apolitical frames of interpretation can inform our understanding of migrants’ reactions in the wake of shocking political events. Can reactions to a moral shock entail drawing on several available moral languages or frames of interpretation about political involvement?

The article proceeds as follows. We first describe the context and methods on which we based our study, before we compare how reactions to the full-scale invasion are represented within the study materials. The final part of the analysis typologises two frames of reference (Goffman, 1974), describing available societal narratives about political participation and collective action that appear in the material by drawing on reiterations of (a)political socialisation during the childhood and school years (Zhelnina, 2020), encounters with social movement activity or tutelary figures (Fillieule, 2013) and exposure through the migration process (White et al., 2008). Finally, we argue that the tendency to either ‘avoid politics’ (Eliasoph, 1997; Zhelnina, 2020) or engage in protest in response to shocking political events (Jasper and Poulsen, 1995) is based on interpretative frames that are not static or unliteral, but contextually and emotionally variable.

Moral Shocks and Frames of Interpretation

Theoretical perspectives that emphasise ‘opportunity structures’ (Koopmans and Statham, 2003), such as access to networks, influence and economic resources, are particularly important to understand the establishment and effectiveness of social movement organisations, including migrants’ associations (Østergaard-Nielsen, 2003). To understand why some people get involved in collective action while others do not, however, it is useful to rely on perspectives on what motivates or deters people from protesting.

Building on the work of Goffman (1974), social movement scholars Benford and Snow (2000) use the terms ‘frame’ and ‘framing’ to conceptualise the signifying work undertaken by social movements to attract followers. This signifying work involves formulating vocabularies of motive to help potential participants answer questions such as ‘Why take action?’ (Benford and Hunt, 1992: 41). According to this perspective, motivational vocabularies must resonate with ‘the extant stock of meanings, beliefs, ideologies, practices, values, myths, narratives, and the like’ (Benford and Snow, 2000: 629) of a given public to be effective. However, the framing perspective has been criticised for focusing too much on the cognitive and rational dimensions of social movement mobilisation and omitting the role of emotions such as moral outrage, hope, fear and shame in political mobilisation (Larzillière, 2024). Furthermore, Larzillière (2024) has argued that the origins and content of the cultural understandings that social movement frames draw on, and the connection between these understandings and the urge to act or withdraw in the face of moral injustice, remain understudied.

Research on political emotions and collective action has found that whether moral shocks (Jasper and Poulsen, 1995) inspire activism varies with lenses of interpretation, societal contexts (Klandermans and Van Stekelenburg, 2014; Larzillière, 2024) and individual political socialisation trajectories (Fillieule, 2013; White et al., 2008). As Benford and Snow (2000: 615) suggest, it may be difficult for social movement actors to successfully perform ‘core framing tasks’ such as motivational framing to move ‘people from the balcony to the barricades’ when political involvement and protest are understood as either futile or too dangerous.

Within the Russian diaspora, there is currently growing concern about the fear of reprisals from the Russian regime on Russian activists abroad (Schenkkan and Linzer, 2021; Sergeeva and Kamalov, 2025), making the fear of transnational repression an aspect that might restrain people from getting involved in visible collective action (Tsourapas, 2021). Sergeeva and Kamalov (2025) also indicated that half of the respondents in their study reported harbouring a strong sense of guilt and responsibility for Russia’s war in Ukraine. As the scholarship on moral shocks has taught us, emotionally shocking experiences can lead people to mobilise politically (Jasper and Poulsen, 1995) but have also been reported to lead to resignation and withdrawal from politics (Larzillière, 2024).

Before the full-scale invasion, Zhelnina (2020) mapped how cultural norms and emotional responses like fear and shame facilitate a disbelief in politics and collective action in the Russian context. Relatedly, in his study of grassroots mobilisation in Russia during 2011–2012, Zhuravlev (2014) noted that the political sphere has come to be regarded as coercively collectivised and politicised, leading many Russian citizens to withdraw from political participation. Alongside this rejection of the public sphere, there has been a corresponding elevation in the importance of the private sphere (Zhuravlev, 2014), disassociating the dirty or dangerous world of politics from the safe haven of private lives (Zhelnina, 2020).

In their analysis of the Russian context, the above-mentioned scholars observed many of the same tendencies that were noted by Eliasoph (1997), who focused on the cultural work entailed in producing apathy or taking an apolitical position in the United States. One of Eliasoph’s (1997) interpretations is that the work to avoid politics is a strategy to deal with a sense of powerlessness vis-a-vis the political, to avoid losing faith in democracy. She contrasts this approach with the activists in her sample, who, in contrast to the volunteers, did not have to treat the personal and political as opposites to cultivate a sense of hope (Eliasoph, 1997). Eliasoph (1997) has argued that it takes cultural work to avoid politics and produce political apathy, since people do care about the society they live in and often involve themselves in upholding democratic values even when trying to avoid politics. Several other scholars have also conceptualised tensions and contradictions embedded in what Bennet et al. (2013) describe as ‘disavowal of the political’. In a recent study from Denmark for example, Toubøl (2019) provided nuance to what may appear as political apathy. He argued that the activists in his sample did not lose their sense of trust in political institutions because of political apathy, but rather that they moved from a mode of legitimising political institutions to one of contending with and questioning them.

Even in contexts where apoliticism has been emphasised, the presence of protest movements and other forms of collective action or human rights advocacy are often present. Russia’s recent political history contains examples of large-scale collective action and smaller-scale actions (Clément and Zhelnina, 2020; Morris et al., 2023). Prevalent examples include the social movement emerging during Perestroika, labour protests in the 1990s, protests against social reform in the 2000s (Clément and Zhelnina, 2020) and the widely covered For Fair Elections campaign in 2011–2012 (Dollbaum, 2020; Zhuravlev, 2014). Furthermore, Russia has a strong tradition of human rights activism. Associations, including, vocal individuals and political journalists, have been influential in bringing human rights concerns to the public eye. In the following we will investigate transnational repression, political apathy and political involvement by mapping how these issues are woven into the interviewees’ perspectives on participating in or avoiding politics.

Russian Migrants in Norway

Those originating from the Russian Federation comprise a relatively small immigrant group in Norway, with 22,254 registered immigrants and 4957 children of Russian immigrants. ¹ About two-thirds of Russian migrants in Norway are women, and marriage migration has traditionally been a common reason for immigration of Russian citizens (Wara and Munkejord, 2018). The other main migration modes are student migration and labour migration. A very small, but increasing number, have sought asylum due to political persecution. ² The Russian Federation includes a variety of different republics and ethnicities, and the differences between ‘Russian migrants’, in terms of when and why they left Russia, their culture, religion, worldview and political stance, are likely to be more important than identities that unite them.

In Norway, the recorded political mobilisation of Russian migrants has been very limited. The first grassroots organisation dedicated to pro-democratic development in Russia, SmåRådina: For Democracy in Russia, was established in 2021 (Bygnes, 2024). The number of members is mentioned on their website as ‘more than 100 people’, while the Facebook group SmåRådina has just over 1400 followers. It should be noted, however, that there can be high costs to membership in organisations that the Russian authorities place on the list of undesirable or extremist. SmåRådina is not currently on that list, but many sister organisations in other countries have been added since 2022.

We know relatively little about migrants with a Russian background in Norway when it comes to their identity or attachment to Russia. Some studies have focused on gender roles, stereotypes and exclusion (Flemmen, 2007; Munkejord, 2017; Wara and Munkejord, 2018), and two recent studies from the Norwegian context have focused on how Russian migrants who have protested the war against Ukraine relate to their first homeland (Bygnes, 2024; Stevnhøj, 2023). However, we still know little about how the full-scale invasion has impacted migrants from Russia who have not been involved in political mobilisation.

Data and Methods

As part of a larger study (Russian migrants and the anti-war movement) about anti-war protest activities among Russian migrants in Europe, qualitative interviews were conducted with 24 migrants who live in Norway. First, 13 participants were recruited to the study because they had taken part in at least one protest against Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine before the interview (see, Bygnes, 2024, 2025). The ‘protesters’ were interviewed between October and December 2022 by Bygnes and Sokolova. Subsequently, 11 participants from Russia who identified as ‘outside politics’ were recruited to the study by Sokolova in September and October 2023. The main selection criteria for this part of the study were Russian origin, Norwegian residence during the recruitment period and a self-identification as ‘outside of politics’, which has been observed as a common phrase used by Russian immigrants describing their (a)political stance. This specific wording was chosen after careful consideration because any references to ‘war’ or ‘full-scale invasion’ were considered unbeneficial to the recruitment process. All 24 interviewees had a master-level or higher education and come from different parts of the Russian Federation, including both urban cities like Moscow and St Peterburg as well as more remote parts of the country. Most interviewees had Russian citizenship and permanent residence permits in Norway, but some had naturalised as Norwegian citizens or held dual citizenships. Most still had close relatives in Russia.

Interviewing migrants originating from Russia about politics, protest and the war in Ukraine raised complex ethical issues and challenged access because of their potential vulnerability. Ethical dilemmas, including the risk of transnational repression (Schenkkan and Linzer, 2021), were handled through anonymisation, the use of offline devices and storing data on institutional SAFE servers. Interviews were conducted after an explicit consent procedure, supportive quotes were anonymised and the use of biographical data is limited to a minimum. The collection and processing of data was approved by Sikt – the Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research.

Interviewees were recruited through fieldwork in Oslo, the network of a Russian-speaking research assistant in Bergen, the network of Sokolova in Oslo and by snowball sampling. The interviews were conducted in Russian, English or Norwegian. Quotes in Russian were translated by Sokolova who is a native Russian speaker living in Norway and Norwegian quotes were translated into English for the study purposes by Bygnes. The data were manually coded following the principle of inductive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006), comparing interviews with interviewees who were recruited as protesters and those recruited because they identified as outside politics, focusing on how these study participants described their reactions in the weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The second analysis step was triggered by unexpected similarities between these groups; as in the case of protesters (Bygnes, 2024, 2025) interviewees who identified as ‘outside of politics’ also described feelings of shock, fear, shame and guilt deeply impacting their lives after receiving the news about the full-scale invasion.

Drawing on a constructionist approach that adheres specifically to ‘the sociocultural contexts [. . .] that enable the individual accounts that are provided’ (Braun and Clarke, 2006: 85), all the material was again coded to examine specifically how frames of understanding about political involvement and protest were reflected in the interviews. To do so, we coded ‘political’ and ‘apolitical’ experiences reflected on in the interviews.

Our approach was inspired by Goffman’s (1974: 27) Frame Analysis in which he attends to micro-interactions in everyday life to suggest that: ‘One must try to form an image of a group’s framework of frameworks – its belief system, its “cosmology”’, but in which he also highlights that ‘during any one moment of activity, an individual is likely to apply several frameworks’. We draw on our interlocutors’ own reflections about the political to provide empirical grounding for their considerations related to participating or not participating in political activities, thus challenging clear division lines between political and apolitical responses to moral shocks.

The Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine as a Moral Shock

In the early morning of 24 February 2022, news of Russia’s full-scale invasion of a neighbouring country, Ukraine, started reaching those not directly affected by the atrocities. That morning, in Norway, another neighbouring country further north, the news that the authorities in her country of origin had gone to war reached Natasha (protester, 30s):

Feelings of shock and fear, and descriptions of crying and being unable to eat, recurred in interviewees’ descriptions of their reactions to the news about the full-scale war. Descriptions of life after the full-scale invasion suggest that this event impacted many of the interviewees’ lives, as exemplified by Alexei (protester, 30s), who reported feeling more pessimistic: ‘I have never felt so bad in my life as since the war started. I am still [. . .] basically, my life is completely destroyed. I was sort of optimistic, and now I am not optimistic at all.’ Similarly, Viktor (protester, 30s) describes his state of mind in the weeks and months following the full-scale invasion as ‘dark’, reporting that: ‘it is a feeling that you are falling and there is no ground under your feet [. . .] you cannot do normal things and you get the feeling that your life is sucked into a deep black hole’. Others described feeling a sense of collective guilt on behalf of all Russians, leading to an overwhelming mix of emotions, which were expressed as ‘panic, fear, anger, shame and guilt’ by Ilya (protester, 30s).

The sense of collective guilt, responsibility, anger and fear has been reported as widespread among Russian migrants who left the country in the aftermath of the full-scale invasion (Sergeeva and Kamalov, 2025). According to Jasper and Poulsen (1995), events experienced as morally shocking can lead some to engage in protest activities. The ‘protesters’ recruited for our study reported feeling compelled to get involved in diaspora politics, along with other migrants from Russia, and to engage in protest activities against the war led by the regime in their homeland. These activities were often described as an outlet for the intense negative feelings that had haunted them since receiving the news about the full-scale invasion. Several protesters referred to participation in collective action and getting together with others originating from Russia as ‘a kind of therapy’ (Arina, protester, 30s). Viktor (protester, 30s) particularly foregrounded ‘being recognised for your feelings’ and a sense of ‘community and reciprocal support’ that he could only find among Russians protesting the war since, ‘It [the war] really concerns who you are as a person when you have that belonging to Russia, you are sort of responsible for what is happening even though it is not your fault.’ As previous analysis has demonstrated, building a collective identity as ‘Russians against the war’ (Bygnes, 2025) can be one way of dealing with this identity dilemma.

This was not the case for our interviewees who were recruited because they identified as ‘outside of politics’, henceforth referred to as ‘apolitical’. ‘Apolitical’ interviewees did, however, report very strong reactions to the news on 24 February 2022. For example, Mina (apolitical, 50s) recalled entering a depression-like mental state when faced with the news:

I had the feeling of being in a nightmare. [. . .] I remember I was in such an emotional shock, I hardly slept for two weeks. I was on sick leave from work [. . .] I could not eat, I just cried.

Similarly, Alla (apolitical, 30s) reported the first weeks as ‘very tough, I was seriously depressed. I could not sit down on a chair, I understood I had to do something, I could not move.’ As in the interviews with protesters, several referred to loss of appetite, crying and a feeling of despair. The feeling of shame was also recurrently expressed in interviews with ‘apoliticals’ like Zina (40s), who said: ‘It was disgusting to feel that I was Russian and I didn’t want to live with that [identity].’ Despite these interviewees defining themselves as ‘apolitical’, descriptions akin to a moral shock – in the sense of expressing deep sadness and shame, sleeplessness and loss of appetite – also occurred frequently in these interviews. For most, however, such shocks do not translate to involvement in collective action and political protest.

Among the coping strategies reported by ‘apolitical’ interviewees, we pay particular attention to three aspects: seeking psychological help, distancing themselves from the Russian state and supporting friends or doing practical humanitarian work. First, several of the ‘apolitical’ interviewees referred to seeking psychological help and going to therapy as an important strategy for dealing with the shock and negative emotions in the weeks and months after the invasion. This was exemplified by Dasja (apolitical, 30s):

Whereas ‘protesters’ refer to the therapeutic effect of going to protests and experiencing something as a collective, ‘apolitical’ interviewees like Dasja (apolitical, 30s) refer to their feelings and sense of trauma as an individual experience, which they overcame by seeking individual therapeutic help.

In contrast to protesters who engaged in the production of a collective identity, visibly foregrounding their identity as ‘Russians against the war’ (Bygnes, 2025), several ‘apolitical’ interviewees worked during the interview to distance themselves from their Russian identity. For example, Daniil (apolitical, 40s) foregrounded his ties to Norway several times during the interview, saying that ‘I am Norwegian, I am a Norwegian citizen, that is important to take into consideration’ and referred to his Russian identity as ‘just a fun fact’ belonging to the past. This form of detachment from national identity can be interpreted as an alternative coping mechanism to manage shame and other negative emotions.

Others did not distance themselves from their Russian identity but worked to distinguish clearly between the Russian state and its politics on the one hand and the motherland on the other. Ksenia (apolitical, 30s) expressed it in the following way: ‘to be Russian has nothing to do with politics [. . .] to me, Russia is my cabin, my parents, my childhood. It is the state that has gone to war, not my motherland.’ Indeed, several ‘apolitical’ interviewees constructed themselves as ‘proud Russians’ by distancing themselves from the political realm and emphasising aspects such as upbringing, culture, language and family ties when talking about their Russian identity.

In line with observations by Eliasoph (1997) and Larzillière (2024) about ‘staying close to home’ and getting involved with volunteering, while working to avoid politics, an important dimension of the reactions reported by the interviewees we labelled ‘apolitical’ was the urge to perform practical deeds (Zhuravlev et al., 2019) and help individuals. For example, Katja (apolitical, 30s) said: ‘Do you think that someone will change their life after a demonstration? It is better to do something concrete and start with those closest to you.’ Katja’s statement echoes the contrast between ‘dirty’ politics and ‘real’ action but also explicates a belief in practical civic action (Morris et al., 2023; Zhelnina, 2020; Zhuravlev et al., 2019). To provide a deeper analysis of the interviewees’ reflections on political involvement, we will examine the variations in interpretive lenses about politics articulated in the interview material and typologise two contrasting frames of reference.

The Democratic Ideals Frame

The frame we conceptualise as ‘democratic ideals’ appears to be an important component of the worldviews that came to the fore during the interviews (Larzillière, 2024). For example, Arina (protester, 30s) foregrounded how she saw protest and regime critique as closely connected to hope and the future: ‘For me, being active and speaking my mind is first and foremostly about letting the hope of a democratic society in Russia stay alive [. . .], without it hope would disappear.’ As in several interviews drawing on this frame, protest and a democratic future are contrasted with an unwanted alternative: to stop voicing critique against the regime would imply giving up their belief in democratic ideals and a better future for Russia.

Among interviewees who drew on this frame, many referred to having grown up in a milieu that despised and avoided politics but often included a story of political ‘awakening’, a ‘social trigger’ marking the start of a politicisation process (Hensby, 2017: 965). For some, this moment was before migration due to parents’ political interest, a teacher, a fellow student, a political figure or friends who were active in fighting for social justice or human rights. Others referred to relations forged after migration, through following political issues at home on social media or through friends and contacts interested in politics.

Two interviewees foregrounded that the experience of living in a democratic context had impacted their relations to politics and prompted their pro-democratic engagement. Many stories of ‘exposure’ (White et al., 2008) to democratic ideals and practices did, however, refer to influences from Russian contexts rather than those in Norway.

Viktor’s (protester, 30s) story is an example of this. He was one of the interviewees who took part in demonstrations for the very first time in 2022. He foregrounded a particular teacher in school, a previous opposition figure who ended up as a primary school teacher after being a political prisoner, as particularly impactful in ‘carving out my values’. Resonating with Fillieule’s (2013: 3) work foregrounding ‘intellectual stimuli, the role of political movements and tutelary figures’ as important and central to political socialisation, Viktor suggests that this influence during his school years was conducive to his and others’ work for human rights and social justice later in life.

Finally, Kira’s (protester, 20s) story exemplifies a third source of political ‘awakening’. Kira’s interest in politics started because she wanted to stay connected to Russia and what was going on among the young people there after she had migrated. Through new contacts on Russian social media like Vkontakte (VK) and Telegram, she joined groups and slowly became more interested in politics. She foregrounded a specific VK group as particularly important in this regard: ‘For me, it was the first step towards political consciousness. I learned more about LGBT rights, human rights, everything they told me was completely new to me.’ These three cases exemplify how political socialisation outside the family (Fillieule, 2013) and embeddedness in milieus that approve of political activity (Klandermans and Van Stekelenburg, 2014) can impact people’s political engagement trajectories.

Surprisingly, we found that most references to fear of transnational repression (Schenkkan and Linzer, 2021) in the interview material were articulated within the frame of democratic ideals, oftentimes through insistence that protesting or raising your voice in public is worth taking a risk for. Some reflected on the issue of transnational repression, stating they had to overcome their own fear before joining protests. For example, Oksana (protester, 30s) said she had been scared to protest at the beginning of the war, but that she was no longer afraid:

In addition to an expressed commitment to human rights ideals or an interest in social justice issues, we thus found that narratives drawing on the frame of democratic ideals not only rendered political activity relevant, but that it was also worth taking a risk for. These elements of the democratic ideals frame align closely with Larzillière’s (2024) argument that moral shocks may lead to activism or political involvement when people’s experience is grounded in a frame of reference that renders political activity relevant and offers a sense of relief. Oksana’s reflections do, however, also indicate a certain ambivalence. Her interview quote above hints at an internal negotiation process preceding her stated decision to protest.

Other examples of such ambivalence can be found in narratives that pronounce an explicit anti-war stance on the one hand, while on the other hand opposing the viability of protest and foregrounding the importance of being involved in practice. Alla’s (apolitical, 30s) narrative is an example. As did several others, she expressed both that she does not believe in protesting but that she is active and vocal about her support for Ukrainian refugees:

One thing is saying that ‘no, we do not support this [the war]’ but you must do it using actions, not words. If you yell slogans about being against the war, nobody will believe you. It is better to go out and help refugees, give them food, give them clothes, and organise the support.

Although interviewees who took this stance tended to draw on the avoiding politics frame to explain why they were not interested in participating in protests or advocacy work, such narratives still tend to demonstrate a firm belief in human rights ideals and a commitment to contributing to alleviate the consequences of war through practically helping and supporting refugees. These narratives can be said to oscillate between a mode of legitimising and a mode of questioning the legitimacy of political participation (Toubøl, 2019).

The Avoiding Politics Frame

We developed the frame of avoiding politics by tracing some of the political socialisation cues in the interviews. The most prevalent components on which we have drawn in conceptualising this frame are: childhood memories related to avoiding political involvement; references to mistrust in politics and politicians; conveying ideas that politics is useless, dirty or dangerous; reference to experiences of powerlessness vis-a-vis the Russian state apparatus; and (infrequent) references to fear of transnational repression. We build on Eliasoph’s (1997) argument that taking different political positions involves cultural work, and that understanding this requires attention to the context of meaning in which the positions are developed.

Although the ‘avoiding politics’ frame was recognised in most of the interviews, it was drawn on more often and more consistently in the narratives of participants who defined themselves as ‘apolitical’. Many interviewees referred to their childhoods and upbringings when drawing on the avoiding politics frame. For example, Mina (apolitical, 50s) reported being part of mandatory demonstrations organised by her school during the Soviet era, at which attendance was not an individual choice: ‘I attended protests during the Soviet times when the schools forced pupils to participate. Nobody explained why, they just said “you have to do it”.’ Such ‘forced’ collective action seemed to have played a part in undermining Mina’s outlook on protests as purposeful. Similarly, Katja (apolitical) reflected on her decision to abstain from protest activism when recalling a childhood memory of discussing her desire to vote with her mother: ‘There was constant nagging about how we can’t influence anything. . . like, “Don’t be so stupid! Who needs your vote?” It’s nonsense. Oh, and what about Grandma voting? She’s got dementia.’

Negative views of older family members can shape perceptions of political engagement (White et al., 2008; Zhelnina, 2020) and become part of the embeddedness in milieus that disapprove of political involvement (Klandermans and Van Stekelenburg, 2014). In this context, the ridicule of political enthusiasm may signal a cynical attitude towards politics (Zhelnina, 2020), conveying to children that political emotions are ‘foolish’, establishing the grounds for what Eliasoph (1997) calls ‘the work of avoiding politics’.

Like the interviewees who identify as ‘outside politics’, several ‘protesters’ also mention growing up in homes where politics was ridiculed or deemed unimportant. As Arina (protester, 30s) explained:

Nobody from my network was interested in or involved in politics. Now, I think there could be many reasons for that. The education system has not taught us to be citizens, either in school or in higher education. [. . .] the educational system was not interested. Or rather, the state was not interested and maybe even suppressed critical thinking. [. . .] So, none of my friends [. . .] it was not ‘comme il faut’ to be interested in politics. Politics seemed something big, distant, that you cannot influence, uninteresting.

Among several of the interviewees, the sense that ‘politics is dirty’ and that those who seek political power are ‘sick’ (Zina, apolitical, 40s) seems to have prevailed after leaving Russia. Such distrust in politics was also present in narratives of some of the interviewees who had previously participated in political activities. Some came from politically engaged families, others referred to previous involvement in pro-democratic protests in Russia.

For example, Daniil (apolitical, 40s) had participated in several protests in Russia during the For Fair Elections campaign of 2011–2012. He referred to disappointing experiences, describing the protests in which he participated as ‘meaningless events’ where he felt powerless in the face of the ‘brutal structures in Russia!’, and discouraged by the realisation that: ‘three hundred thousand people could do almost nothing against two tanks and twenty armed soldiers. We have no political tools, no power instruments either. We stood up, protested, made our stance known, and then went our separate ways.’ Both Eliasoph’s (1997) suggestion that work to avoid politics can help with dealing with a sense of powerlessness and Larzillière’s (2024) argument that collective action must offer a sense of relief to continue resonates in Daniil’s decision to avoid politics after his experiences in Russia. Although the work that Daniil did to avoid politics was clearly foregrounded in his narrative, his participation in these protests suggests that democratic ideals are also present when considering political developments.

To our surprise, we also discovered that two of the ‘apolitical’ study participants had, in fact, participated in anti-war demonstrations in Oslo during 2022. Drawing heavily on what we have labelled the avoiding politics frame, both emphasised that they had participated merely to support Ukrainian friends, foregrounding that their protest activities were explicitly not political. Underlining that she participated in the Ukrainian demonstrations but not the rallies organised by the pro-democratic Russian diaspora association, Ksenia (apolitical, 30s) insists that: ‘I came to the Ukrainian demonstrations in order to support my Ukrainian friends.’ In these instances, and not unlike participants in Eliasoph’s (1997: 626) US study who ‘had to convince themselves that a problem was “not political” in order to care about it’, we found that even a seemingly political act like participating in an anti-war demonstration was understood within the avoiding politics frame. We suggest that such apparent gaps between participation in anti-war demonstrations and the work invested in framing these actions as unpolitical reflects an ambivalence that can contribute to our understanding of people’s responses in the wake of moral shocks.

Considering our interviewees’ reflections on the potential threats of transnational repression provides further examples of an ambivalence about the political in which the respective frames of democratic ideals and avoiding politics are drawn upon interchangeably. For example, Anya (protester, 30s) explained that, despite having participated in demonstrations, and being unafraid of being seen to do so in Norway, she was afraid that ‘they [Russian authorities] can use our families to do the pressure’ and had therefore decided not to express her opinions on social media. Thus, although she often referred to a frame of thought foregrounding her belief in democratic ideals, she drew on the avoiding politics frame to motivate her decision to not voice her opinion on social media: ‘there is always this feeling that whatever you do, it is not going to change things. Why do something if it’s for nothing?’ Polina (apolitical, 40s) made a similar argument when explaining why she had considered protesting but eventually had opted not to participate in a demonstration against the war on the first anniversary, 24 February 2023: ‘I did not want to lose the possibility to go home to my parents. [. . .] God knows what kind of consequences [participating in demonstrations] could have for my family.’ What Gel’man (2016) labelled the politics of fear, instigated to prevent the spread of oppositional voices, thus appears as a component in the negotiation between different frames of interpretation when deciding whether to participate in protests or other visible political activities. This is evocatively illustrated by Mina’s (apolitical, 50s) sense that: ‘there is a whip that is always hanging on the wall’; a potential punishment she says motivates her stance that it is: ‘better to keep silent than to risk saying something wrong’.

Discussion: Oscillating between Frames

Thus far, we have anchored the interviewees’ narratives about their reactions to the war to two frames: ‘avoiding politics’ and ‘democratic ideals’. However, as the analysis indicates, several interview narratives oscillate between these frames. This suggests that even narratives closely aligned with the democratic ideals frame can sometimes convey an ambivalent relation to political involvement. We propose that this ambivalence reflects a shift between the frames of reference. As suggested by Goffman (1974), individuals may apply several frameworks when considering a situation or issue. For example, the narratives provided by protesters Oksana and Anya both refer to a fear of repercussions from the Russian authorities. When explaining what was holding them back from protesting or expressing political opinions on social media, they both drew on a vocabulary of avoiding politics. However, they had both decided to voice their opinions against the war and the Russian regime in the streets of Oslo, drawing on a frame of democratic ideals.

Taking the perspective that people may shift between frames can help us interpret why the fear of transnational repression was expressed more often by interviewees who had opted to protest than by those who had not. As Oksana and Anya expressed, deciding to protest in the streets can be fraught with ambivalence. When considering the relevance of protesting and acknowledging its potential consequences for oneself or one’s family in Russia, it is necessary to balance the fear of getting involved in politics with the hope that raising one’s voice and upholding democratic ideals is worth the risk. On the other hand, for interviewees who did not consider protest, the fear of transnational repression can perhaps be kept at bay more efficiently by doing as Mina (apolitical, 50s) did and avoiding the potential punishment of the ‘whip on the wall’ by keeping silent.

As the analysis indicated, we also found examples of interviewees who identified as being outside of politics shifting between frames within their narratives. Daniil (apolitical, 40s) referred to his participation in the For Fair Elections protests in Russia in 2011–2012, suggesting his belief in democratic ideals and his belief that he could influence political developments in Russia. However, he emphasised his fear and sense of powerlessness when explaining why he had chosen not to participate in anti-war demonstrations in Norway following the full-scale invasion.

Ksenia (apolitical, 30s), on the other hand, joined the anti-war protests in Oslo in 2022 to show solidarity with her Ukrainian friends. This indicates her belief in democratic ideals, although she insists on her commitment to avoiding politics when explaining her motivations for doing so. Similarly, Alla (apolitical, 30s) expressed her disdain for shouting anti-war slogans, claiming that street protests are ineffective, while simultaneously donating, volunteering and organising support for refugees. Rather than political apathy, these apolitical stances appear to shift between legitimising and questioning the relevance of political involvement (Toubøl, 2019).

We argue that these layers in discussions about avoiding politics can be understood as oscillating between two frames of reference: disillusionment with politics, and belief in democratic values and principles (Clément and Zhelnina, 2020). Observations in the previous literature have indicated that avoiding politics entails balancing (at least) two differing approaches to politics and democracy. For example, Eliasoph (1997) indicated that working to avoid politics can be understood as a strategy to balance a sense of powerlessness and belief in democratic values. We suggest that these processes can be expressed as an oscillation between different frames of reference that inform people’s reflections about, and reactions to, political events.

We argue that this process is not purely cognitive but is closely related to the emotions that are emphasised in the narratives. The ‘avoiding politics’ frame comes to the fore when fear, hopelessness and powerlessness are prevalent, whereas stories about overcoming fear and fostering hope and a sense of agency are anchored in the ‘democratic ideals’ frame. Combining insights into how people may shift between legitimising and questioning the legitimacy of politics (Eliasoph, 1997; Toubøl, 2019) with insights into the role of emotions (Jasper and Poulsen, 1995; Larzillière, 2024), we propose that the frames individuals rely on in response to political shocks are not fixed, but fluctuate based on context and emotional reactions.

Conclusion

Across the research material, we documented descriptions akin to a moral shock when faced with the news about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While ‘the protesters’ mainly anchored their responses in a frame of reference that rendered political activities meaningful, and the building of politically minded collectives helpful for dealing with feelings of fear, guilt and anger, those defining themselves as ‘apolitical’ sought relief elsewhere. The latter tended to foreground approaches ‘closer to home’ (Eliasoph, 1997), by helping friends and family, toning down their Russian identity or working to decouple Russian identity and Russian politics as strategies to deal with feelings like shock, shame and fear. In line with the argument of scholars such as Benford and Snow (2000) that social movements’ vocabularies of motivation must resonate with cultural beliefs and ideologies to be effective, and the work of scholars such as Jasper and Poulsen (1995) and Larzillière (2024) who foreground the role of emotions in political mobilisation, we argue that a focus on both the cognitive and emotional aspects of these frames is central to understanding how reactions to moral shocks are linked to cultural frames. Our study shows that while experiences and ideologies that consider politics as futile or bad (Zhelnina, 2020), and emotions like fear and hopelessness, appear conducive to shaping what we typologise as a frame of ‘avoiding politics’, these same interviewees also frequently draw on the frame we typologise as ‘democratic ideals’ where hope and overcoming fear are foregrounded features.

We posit that attending to individuals’ oscillations between available frames of interpretation regarding political involvement adds an important aspect to our interpretation of how they respond in the wake of moral shocks (Jasper and Poulsen, 1995). In our cases, this occurred at the intersection between disillusionment with politics and belief in democratic values, indicating that the line between protesting and avoiding politics in the wake of moral shocks can be blurred, and is subject to shifts and negotiations. Thus, in the cases studied here, the strenuous work to avoid politics (Eliasoph, 1997) also carries a grain of hope. Keeping politics at arm’s length may not necessarily be a sign of disbelief in democratic ideals, but of managing fear and powerlessness while finding a way of maintaining hope and a sense of agency. Our study suggests that, even when fear and the sense of distance from political influence is exacerbated by autocratic contexts, the belief in democratic ideals may be resilient to dissolution and apathy.