Hybrid regimes like electoral authoritarianism blend elements of democratic and non-democratic political practices. Hybrid regimes can develop from populism or can themselves develop populism to explain and justify their democratic shortcomings. Where the latter occurs, populism is a tool of regime stabilisation rather than a form of ‘populism in power’. Moving from using some populist themes to assist regime stabilisation to official populism requires the development of populist discourse to a point where it becomes definitional of what constitutes the relationship between state and society. The paper uses the example of Russia to discuss the uses of populism in a hybrid regime. Populist rhetoric has been used by the Putin regime since the mid-2000s, but was initially balanced by other discourses. This changed during the 2011–2012 electoral cycle as a conservative-traditional populist discourse was deployed that redefined political agency and the relationship of the state to Russian society.
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