Maslanov D.V. President and Russians: foreign outlook upon the attitude of population of post-Soviet Russian towards presidents of the country

Abstract: This article examines the attitude of the population of Russian Federation towards the presidents of the country in the context of “democratic transition” theories. The research of political development of countries with the transition type of democracy, which post-Soviet Russian is referred to as, or democratic transits, hold special place in the world political science. The peculiarities of public opinion regarding the establishing Russian democracy were not left without attention of the foreign sociological research; due to this fact, based on the example of little-studied public opinion polls conducted by the foreign authors, it is demonstrated how they view the population’s perception of the institution and persona of the president and his impact upon the  development of country’s political system. This work analyzes the foreign research carried out in cooperation with the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, surveys of Pew Research Center, and others. The main result lies in the introduction into the scientific discourse of a number of little-studied foreign research, which confirm a foreign idea that the transit of democracy formed a hybrid government in post-Soviet Russia (hybrid regime, authoritarian democracy, electoral authoritarianism). In addition to that, the provided opinions and results can considered in structuring the long-term image strategies by the Russian government.

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