Political branding in Russia and Kazakhstan

The Higher School of Economics hosted the scientific-practical conference ‘Media research: theory, practice and research prospects', where scientists and media experts gave lectures, including an Associate Professor of the Department of Integrated Communications of the HSE, Pavel Rodkin. On the eve of the early parliamentary elections scheduled for March 20th 2016, Rodkin told Vestnik Kavkaza about the role played by political branding in the post-Soviet space, particularly in Russia and in Kazakhstan

 

Political branding is the science and art of creating and promoting the images of politicians and political parties to form the symbols of the long-term preferences of the population to them.

"The modern branding that is in consumption, in politics, in the social and political spheres, is today, in fact, one of the most powerful, and in some moments the only tool, if not of controlling, then of formation and interaction with the mass consciousness. Those or other political processes and consumer behaviors are formed because of mass consciousness, which requires a specific interaction of the political environment in its management tools, the impact of the technology is very similar to the sphere of consumption,’’ Rodkin said.

The primary source of political propaganda and public relations, he called the book by Edward Bernays, 'Propaganda', which appeared in 1928. Already at that time Bernays stated that the political sphere is not much different from the sphere of advertising in its technology, according to the tricks that some political actors perform on their target audience, on public opinion.

Speaking of the elections in Kazakhstan, Rodkin believes that the political structure of Kazakhstan's political brand of political parties is almost identical to the Russian one: "There is the so-called party of power, there are the Communists, there are parties that position themselves as the party of the western, European choice, there are all sorts of fringe parties composed of nationalists, because any radical policy is on the periphery of the political process. The ruling party of Kazakhstan in its style is reminiscent of ‘United Russia’. The main semantic brand of both parties are the political leaders. However, Vladimir Putin is trying to build from ‘United Russia’ a kind of independent political force that can exist outside of being bound with the image of their leader, who is really concentrating on all the public, social and political trust. In today's unstable conditions there is a risk that without a political leader such a structure is not viable. If today Nursultan Nazarbayev goes to some other political party, the existence of the Nur Otan party could be put into question, as in the case of United Russia.’’

Rodkin stressed that Russia is trying to overcome this negative point, while Kazakhstan in this regard is still lagging behind. "For the sake of objectivity, it must be said that it still has its own characteristics, its own conditions, but nevertheless, if this is a strategic moment, Kazakhstan and Nazarbayev also have to take the next step in the development of the party in power as a kind of independent subject,’’ the expert believes.

As for the other parties, the greatest concern of Rodkin is the existence of the Communist Party as an independent brand: "We see what is happening with the Communist Party in Ukraine, Moldova, they almost lost their identities and there is a certain split in the Communist Party of Kazakhstan. It is a situation in which the political brand of the Communists of Kazakhstan must be either lost or transformed into something else. But this is a question directly for the Communist party of Kazakhstan, how they see their further existence as they continue to do their work."