The Political Implications of Popular Support for Presidential Term Limits in Russia

With Vladimir Putin having commenced his second term, the issue of the constitutional limit of two successive terms for the president has again become politically salient in Russia. In this paper, we investigate the political significance of public support for term limits. We address three questions. Why does the issue of term limits matter? Who in Russia does it matter to? Would the abolition of term limits be politically divisive? To address these questions, the paper first provides an historical overview of how and why term limits became part of the constitutional framework in post-Soviet Russia and how and why the issue became politically salient at different points. Second, it considers the main theoretical expectations about the consequences of term limits for a range of political outcomes and why we might therefore expect some citizens rather than others to support these outcomes. Third, we analyse two nationally representative surveys of Russians in 2012 and 2018 to isolate the most significant predictors of support for term limits, and to identify in what ways this is likely to affect their longevity.