Carnegie Moscow Center
The world will see the Kremlin as the culprit whether or not Denis Voronenkov’s murder is ever solved: for too long, Russian authorities have portrayed their country as one that doesn’t hesitate to violate every international norm—including by murdering their own citizens abroad.
There is a broad consensus in Russia that the Kremlin’s hardline stance on terror has kept Russians safe from attack. This guarantee of security has allowed authorities to ignore a host of social and economic problems. But there is a significant downside to this model: any attack on Russian soil begins to erode the underpinnings of the Kremlin’s social contract.
A journalist in St. Petersburg describes scenes of disbelief, charity, and solidarity as citizens of Russia’s second city reacted to an unprecedented terrorist act.
Since this spring, it has become clear that Russia’s political system of managed chaos is devolving into a free-for-all in which Rosneft chief Igor Sechin and his small cadre of current and former FSB officers have the upper hand.
The $120 million in cash found in Dmitry Zakharchenko’s sister’s home must have come from some sort of illegal business activity—likely involving the contraband market.
The Armenian protesters are motivated by socio-economic issues and the desire for social justice—not larger notions of democracy that constitute international human rights advocacy.
In recent years, North Korea has transformed from one of the least to one of the most corrupt countries in East Asia. But this has been a blessing for its people, both politically and economically
Civil society now plays an outsized role in Ukrainian politics.
Russia’s “pivot to Asia” is meeting with a number of challenges, such as bureaucratic inertia, lack of workable ideas, and high levels of corruption. However, there are ways of dealing with all of them.
The post-Soviet elites use the system that Lee Kuan Yew constructed in Singapore to justify political crackdown. However, Lee himself believed that resource-based dictatorships will fail to replicate Singapore’s success, since restricting freedoms is not the cornerstone of his model.