Current political affairs and long-term trends – including the evolution of Russia’s leadership structure – are studied in depth and in comparative context. The program studies Russia’s political institutions, shifting balances of power between the federal center and the regions, changing public attitudes towards democracy, and theoretical issues of politics, economics, power and business.
The system is consuming itself, with each part of it trying to survive separately at the expense of its neighbor. In this situation, society is a hostage of the battle for survival, and an expendable component in political experiments.
The Kremlin has consistently failed to define its vision of Russia’s future. But what about the Russian public?
What are the challenges to Putin’s system? How stable is the Putin majority? What do the domestic protests mean? What signals do the protests in Belarus send to Russia’s elites and civil society? What impact will the attempted assassination of Alexei Navalny have? A seminar held by Carnegie Moscow Center and the Embassy of Finland in Russia addressed these questions and much more.
Faced with a pandemic, growing inequality, and widespread dissatisfaction, the Kremlin has launched a series of measures aimed at consolidating Russia’s authoritarian political system. Will they work?
What action the Russian authorities take largely depends on the early actions and statements of the Biden administration. If Biden’s team shows a rational approach to possible areas of cooperation, that will at the very least delay any large-scale anti-American propaganda campaign.
The protest in Russia is becoming increasingly anti-Putin, as the example of Khabarovsk shows. From all flanks, left and right, not specifically liberal.
Russia needs to restore, rather than erase, the memory of the millions of victims of totalitarianism and cease putting it in competition with the memory of those who fell in battle in World War II.
Trump’s election made Russia a hostage of the battle raging in U.S. domestic politics. This time around, Biden’s victory wouldn’t be the worst thing for Russia.
The Kremlin will face a new Navalny, protected by a force field of Western public opinion.
A new cold war is being waged without rules and without any kind of visible desire from the Russian side to initiate a new “détente,” or at least a “reset”.
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