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Russian Conservatism and Populism: Between the Legal and the Political
The present chapter demonstrates possible uses of populism in law: how ideological messages can be utilised to make the population more receptive of the law and thereby encourage lawful behaviour, reinforcing legitimacy. There can be, naturally, other meanings of populism and other implications of the phrase “law and populism” – e.g., for examining how governments use their lawmaking competences to influence public opinion, or how they try to secure the upper hand in elections by using the law, how conservative politicians use legislation and courts in their fight against liberal ideologies, etc. Examination of “populism in law” in this sense would mean: how this identarian discourse is employed to mobilise the masses and to make them more law-abiding and more susceptible to the ideologies that stand behind the law.