Politics of Suspicion and Threat: Semiotics of Governance in Russian Foreign Agent Law 2012–2022

Application summary

The Russian Foreign Agent Law, introduced in 2012, represents a pivotal legal measure that constrained the autonomy of civil society under the guise of national security. The law, enacted amidst political unrest following contentious elections, initially targeted NGOs receiving foreign funding. Over time, it expanded to include media, individuals, and unregistered associations, culminating in a 2022 shift from regulating "foreign funding" to "foreign influence". To refute the criticism, advocates of the law framed it as a domestic adaptation of a global policy trend. While current literature focuses on the experiences of various actors in Russian civil society, this research addresses a gap by exploring the rhetoric used by policymakers to legitimise the law. Conceptually, this research employs Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA) and Semiotic Institutionalism to offer a nuanced, actor-sensitive approach to the study of political persuasion. By examining the practical use of membership categories, this dissertation maps and interrelates key actors, identifies descriptive repertoires and assumptions of their use. This work examines the rules used to categorise different actors based on how they are perceived by speakers, and how these categorisations inform future policymaking. Drawing on semiotics the analysis looks at how cultural conceptions constrain the available array of descriptions. The primary data includes parliamentary debates and reporting from 2012 to 2022, providing a comprehensive view of how deep-seated cultural ideas about actors were used to justify the Foreign Agent law. This study examines the law’s context to contribute to the broader analysis of the global trend towards authoritarian governance. By focusing on advocates' arguments, it describes how distinct ideas are deployed to shape portrayals of actors and constitute facts. Lastly, the research offers a methodological contribution to the framework of semiotic institutionalism.