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As Russia’s relationship with the West has cooled, Putin has increasingly viewed the prospect of democracy in post-Soviet states as a threat to his rule. The regime’s power is rooted in autocratic political systems where transparency and accountability cannot restrain corrupt practices.
- Russia’s Road to Autocracy
But Putin in the 2000s did not completely crush all...
- Russia’s Road to Autocracy
- Transition from Totalitarian Rule to Democracy
- Failure of Democratic Consolidation
- Autocratic Restoration
- Transition from Authoritarian Rule Again?
Before dissolving in 1991, the USSR under the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had been the longest-lasting one-party state in the world (a distinction now held by China). In the early years of Bolshevik rule, analysts speculated about many factors that seemed ripe to undermine the nascent regime. How could a single system of government c...
After crushing Nikolai Ryzhkov, the last chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers and four other candidates, with 58.6 percent of the popular vote in the first round of the June 1991 presidential election, Yeltsin became Russia’s first elected head of state. This was Yeltsin’s third landslide victory in a competitive, free, and fair election in ...
In 1999, Yeltsin might have been excused for not recognizing the political impact of selecting Putin as his successor. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, many former KGB officers abandoned their commitment to defend the USSR and used their unique access to information to enrich themselves in Russia’s new capitalist economy. After returning from his...
Brezhnev’s zastoi,however, is a cautionary tale for those hoping that the current malaise and growing frustration in Russian society will crystallize to produce regime change. It did not under Brezhnev. Only leadership change at the top triggered reforms, which then allowed social and political forces in the Soviet Union to aggregate and push for c...
May 7, 2020 · In 20 years, Vladimir Putin has managed to take Russia from imperfect democracy to perfect authoritarianism at home, and from a respected partner to near-pariah in international affairs.
- Yevgenia Albats
The absence of a democratic process in the transfer of power from Yeltsin to Putin had a significant impact on Russia's political system and its further development. This period was characterized by the absence of a real democratic electoral procedure, which played a key role in shaping the country's political landscape and halted Russia's ...
Jan 25, 2007 · Putin’s genius, in this version, has been to reconcile national and liberal opinion once again, and so create the first government in Russian history to enjoy a broad political consensus. The market-fundamentalism and retro-Communism of the 1990s, each now a spent force, are no longer alternatives.
May 4, 2020 · Reforms sparked by the final Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, seemed to be ushering in the birth of democracy. An attempted coup by the Soviet old guard was soundly repulsed. Yet a quarter of a century later, it’s clear that the real coup wasn’t led by tanks. Autocracy is firmly in command again.
Jun 27, 2024 · Could Russia have put itself on a steady course toward a consolidated democracy in the 1990s? At the time, Russian leaders vowed that was their goal, and Western leaders offered their support.
