CIAO DATE: 07/2008
May 2008
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Throughout Russia's history, the weakness of institutions and laws has ensured that the successor regimes rarely, if ever, turn out as intended by the previous ruler. Instead of continuity, the national tradition of highly personalized government often produces a very different political organism ostensibly from the same institutional framework. Yet with former president Vladimir Putin's staying on as a kind of regent-prime minister to the dauphin-president Dmitri Medvedev, at least for the next few years, the ideology, priorities, and policies of the Putin Kremlin--what might be called Putinism--are almost certain to inform and guide the Medvedev administration. Part I of this Outlook discusses the components of the new Russian authoritarianism, and parts II and III examine the elements of "Russia, Inc."--the corporatist state that Putin has built--and the factors that may affect Russia's economic performance, stability, and foreign policy in the future.
Resource link: Putinism [PDF] - 126K