How the Right-Wing Rhetoric in the Parliament Affects the Emergence of Restrictive and Punitive Legislations: the Study of State Duma in Russia

In recent years, there has been a rising number of restrictive and punitive legislations in Russia that are used by the state to limit the civil and political rights, infringing on the freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and the rights of minorities. These laws are introduced by the Parliament in the interests of state security, protection of public health, and morals. Such policies characterize the progression of the right-leaning agenda of Russian legislators. Therefore, this article elaborates on the connection between the density of right-wing rhetoric in parliamentary debates and the emergence of restrictive and punitive legislations in Russia. In order to do that, the article employs methods of quantitative text analysis. The research gathered transcripts of parliamentary sessions for 16 years (2007-2023). To analyze this data, the study developed a vocabulary for the identification of right-wing rhetoric covering 12 themes (militarization, authoritarian rule, marginalization of minorities, traditionalism, etc.). This vocabulary was then utilized for Keyword‐Assisted Topic Modeling, enabling this paper to calculate the Index of right-wing topics in parliamentary discussions. Subsequently, the Index serves as a tool for quantifying the prevalence of right-wing rhetoric within the State Duma, and allows examining its relationship with the introduction of restrictive and punitive legislations in Russia. The latter includes over 500 amendments to the penal codes (Criminal Code and Code of Administrative Offenses), representing, inter alia, the infringement of freedoms by the Russian state. Overall, the results of logistic regression demonstrate that the increase in the density of right-wing rhetoric positively affects the odds of the adoption of restrictive and punitive legislations. Therefore, these findings suggest that there is a link between the prevalence of right-wing rhetoric in the Parliament and the state’s onslaught on rights. This study contributes to the fields of parliamentarism and legal mobilization in authoritarian states.