Book Review: Flexible Authoritarianism: Cultivating Ambition and Loyalty in Russia by Anna Schwenck

The global success of neoliberalism has usually been associated with extreme forms of free economic behavior of people and societies. However, countries as diverse as Chile, Hungary, Turkey, and Russia, along with the deepening of their neoliberal projects, have also experienced an increase in authoritarian practice. This interaction has built a multifaceted relationship between neoliberalism and its coexistence within democracies. How do neoliberal regimes cultivate social consensus among their populace? How do tolerance and acceptance intersect with governmental authorities, institutional frameworks, and socioeconomic structures?

‘Flexible Authoritarianism: Cultivating Ambition and Loyalty in Russia’ by Anna Schwenck explores these themes, investigating how neoliberalism contributes to authoritarianism and vice versa. The book explores the dialectical relationship between these two social phenomena in contemporary Russia. She introduces the concept of Flexible Authoritarianism, a governance model intertwining neoliberal and authoritarian practices. This model fosters an environment where individual advancement is incentivized alongside the expansion of coercive state mechanisms, urging citizens to assume accountability for their success while stifling dissent (p. 20). Schwenck suggests that achieving this dual consent of loyalty involves ambitious youths’ criticism of the regime coexisting with their support or tolerance of its objectives (p. 27).

To identify the features of Flexible Authoritarianism she conducts ethnographic research by taking two summer camps for youth organized by the Russian government as case studies.

In this, the author investigates how the unquestionable notion of neoliberalism influences expectations of ‘promising young people’ in a context of growing authoritarianism, and how to evaluate the loyalty of people who do not actively support a regime but rather tolerate it (p. 20). Schwenck argues that cultural insights are crucial to understanding the dialectical nature between neoliberalism and authoritarianism in the Russian case. The research thus finds aspects that become a contribution to understanding other cases where Flexible Authoritarianism plays a role in this complex phenomenon.

The book, structured into seven chapters, connects her fieldwork discoveries with a solid theoretical framework. In the beginning, Schwenck identifies an ambivalence among Russian youth: they view Putin’s favoritism and authoritarianism as endemic problems but also recognize individual acts as ways to change their lives. To explore this duality, she introduces a theoretical discussion on how political regimes require social bases that agree with the prevailing regime. To build tolerance and acceptance, authorities focus on economic aspects, encouraging youth participation through loyalty as a form of co-option to prevent regime change.

Moving forward, the book presents the first-person account of the author’s field experience at two ‘Entrepreneurial Start-Up Culture Meets’ summer camps.

She describes her personal encounter as an external participant in two ‘Entrepreneurial Start-Up Culture Meets’ summer camps focused on training financially capable young leaders. These camps train financially capable young leaders, blending authoritarianism with innovative flexibility. In a ‘markedly nationalist and authoritarian atmosphere’ (p. 48), Schwenck observes the coexistence of political intentions to build legitimacy for the Putin regime while stimulating economic development led by youth.

Schwenck supports her findings by discussing how the regime achieves the acceptance of ambitious and well-educated individuals in a context of restricted freedoms. She explores Soviet traditions that serve Flexible Authoritarianism, identifying domestic actors who mobilize to build regime legitimacy. Practices like volunteer activism and incentivizing work performance create loyalty, reorienting rhetoric toward entrepreneurial and innovative vocations (p. 53).

Schwenk uncovers more elements of Flexible Authoritarianism as a set of beliefs constructing the authoritarian subject. For example, loyalty is constructed through the re-politicization of Russian youth by revitalizing national symbols and emphasizing an entrepreneurial spirit. Another resource is the Putinist ‘normalization of Soviet history’, selectively appropriating the Soviet past as a Russian historical legacy (p. 72).

In her detailed analysis of the summer camps, classified as political spectacles, Schwenck emphasizes performative aspects of style, emotions, and sociability in constructing loyalty to the regime. She compares the educational nature of the camps to corporate human-resources training (p. 101), drawing conclusions from interviews with attendees. These insights reveal how the camps construct a narrative of Russia’s economic innovation, shaping the phenomenon of Flexible Authoritarianism and cultivating loyalty.

By the end of the book, the dialectical relationship between neoliberalism and authoritarianism takes shape. As the author states, ‘The individualistic searches for change that I discovered in the campers’ narratives arise from a complex coexistence of criticism and loyalty to the Russian State’ (p. 117), validating the initial finding on the endemic problems identified by the attendees: favoritism and authoritarianism. In an environment marked by ambivalence between feeling that opportunities are lacking and feeling that people are masters of their own destiny, the book offers a vision of the underlying reasons driving their shift toward acceptance of authoritarian forms of government. Despite identifying favoritism as one of modern Russia’s biggest problems and assuming that ‘knowing the right people is much more important for your career than your skills and knowledge’ (p. 16), attendees accept and embrace the ideas of entrepreneurship and self-improvement promoted by the camps.

These conclusions offer us analytical tools to study cases outside Russia. The contributions are given, for example, in how Schwenk empirically elucidates David Easton’s classic differentiation between popular support for a government and support for a regime. The ‘coexistence of criticism and tolerance’ can be understood in this case thanks to the proposed (and differentiated) categories of legitimacy and loyalty. For the author, unlike the deep validity that legitimacy implies with political rule, loyalty does not presuppose a deep commitment (p. 28). This is evident in how young peoples’ narratives, which include various criticisms of specific political practices of the Putin regime, can accept the authoritarian pedagogical forms of the camps.

As such, this work is a contribution that can be extrapolated from the Russian case. The book offers a comprehensive understanding of the dialectical relationship between neoliberal principles and authoritarian political structures and how they reinforce each other. The above, exemplified by Schwenk’s discoveries that argue that the decrease in belief in collective action as a driver of change and the increase in belief in individual actions strengthens authoritarian leaderships. Going beyond the regime’s own coercive techniques, the book allows us to deeply understand the phenomenon of Flexible Authoritarianism in the era of neoliberalism.