211 © The Author(s) 2018 R.W. Compton, Jr. et al. (eds.), Dynamics of Community Formation, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53359-3_11 CHAPTER 11 Building Consensus? Russian Nationalism as Social Cohesion and Division Nataliia Kasianenko and Robert Ostergard Jr. N. Kasianenko (*) • R. Ostergard Jr. Department of Political Science, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, USA INTRODUCTION The biggest nationalist in Russia is me. But the most proper nationalism is the alignment of actions and policies so that it benefts the people. 1 (Vladimir Putin, October 2014) International sanctions on Russia, economic stagnation and the loss of Russia’s image on the world stage have produced surprising effects on the Russian people. Public opinion surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center in April–May 2015 suggest that Russians exhibit the highest approval rating of their leader than ever before (Simmons et al. 2015). Approximately 9 in every 10 respondents expressed confdence in how President Vladimir Putin has done his job. The same survey suggests the continuing rise of Russian nationalism. An overwhelming majority (93%) of the Russian people have a positive view of their country, with 69% of respondents exhibiting nostalgia over the breakup of the Soviet Union (Simmons et al. 2015). At the same time, research shows that the level of aggressive xenophobia and radicalism in Russia continues to grow (Yudina and Alperovich 2015).