This chapter concerns the moral dimension of Russian political discourse. One of the prompts given to interview subjects directly mentions “the role of moral principles in politics,” but their discussions of moral issues were by no means limited to responding to it alone. Rather, the fact that many of them included moral considerations in their remarks on a number of other topics indicates the salience of this factor generally in the discourse of Russia's political class. I wish to underscore the point that my consideration of the topic, morality, has nothing to do with codes of conduct pertaining to individuals, themselves, much less to whether they abide by them in practice. Rather, the focus falls on moral discourse, conceptions of the good circulating in the political class on which individuals can draw in order to locate themselves in the world of politics, to express their identities and justify their actions, and to characterize the behavior of others. As the remarks of the respondents make clear, moral discourse often intersects with themes of competence, community and approval.

The chapter begins by juxtaposing two discourses organized around the idea of securing the good or the right while constraining the arbitrary use of political power: discourses of law (approval) and morality.