While traditionally linked to economic liberalization, deregulation, and market-driven policies, neoliberalism in Russia has developed a unique trajectory. The neoliberalization marked a new system of governance and political economy, narrowing and materializing the relationships between the state and the social welfare system within the framework of "neoliberal” or “flexible” authoritarianism. This study argues that the mechanism of legitimizing war and mobilization in Russia becomes clearer through the lens of class subjectivities within the context of neoliberally structured socio-economic inequality. Against the backdrop of the Kremlin's intensifying biopolitics aimed at fostering national unity, the depoliticized antagonism between "biopolitical waste" and the "middle class" is resolved through the implicit and explicit use of mobilization as a resource for improving socio-economic positions within the "commercial-biopolitical matrix," both symbolically and financially.

Speaker

Dr. Oleg Kashirskikh earned his Ph.D. at Julius-Maximilians-Universität, Germany. He served as a professor of communication at the School of Communication at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow (2007–2023). Dr. Kashirskikh’s research focuses on contemporary political discourse in the post-communist region, as well as the role of media effects on public opinion. His work has been published in several academic journals, including the European Journal of Communication and the International Journal of Strategic Communication. Currently, Oleg Kashirskikh is a short-term scholar at Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication (OU), as well as a Non-Resident Fellow at the Russia Program (GWU).