Authoritarian regime stabilization through legitimation, popular co-optation, and exclusion: Russian pasportizatsiya strategies in Crimea

Abstract

In the spring of 2014, Russian authorities distributed, rapidly and on mass, Russian passports to their newly and controversially acquired citizens within Crimea. This passport distribution strategy, or pasportizatsiya, can be seen as a continuation of the Soviet practice which was conducted to spatially control a population. In focusing on the most contemporary instance of this practice, this paper asks: how and why did pasportizatsiya take place in Crimea? The research involved a processed-focused empirical data collection, consisting of interviews conducted with Crimeans and NGO representatives. The article finds that distribution of Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens in Crimea provided the Russian Federation with a regime stabilization mechanism, through the population within their new and controversially acquired territorial borders.