ABSTRACT
The chapter explores the relationship between regime type and gender equality in Russia and outlines two main assertions. First, between 1990 and 2020, Russia’s political regime moved back and forth along the spectrum between authoritarianism and democracy. As a result, there are considerable methodological difficulties in isolating the relationship between the political system and the gender regime, but make it a useful case study for thinking about this relationship across Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia (CEE&E). Second, during the period in question, Russia experienced considerable economic volatility, chaotic state-building efforts, sharp inter-elite contestation over the boundaries of the nation, and opaque privatization processes. These processes, while closely bound with democratization, played key causal roles in influencing the gender regime. As a first step in developing comparative insights for the region, the chapter develops a conceptual framework for understanding the gender regime in Russia and maps the respective roles that the complex transition processes have had in shaping that regime.
