Comment: In Oliver Stone's Putin Interviews, Stone poses a question to Putin about the perception that Russia is not a democracy, but an authoritarian state. RBTH summarizes Putin's answer, where he compared the development of political systems to the development of an organism:
Concerning democracy, Putin said Russia is different from Western countries, which have century-old traditions of power changes. For hundreds of years Russia was ruled by an absolute monarchy, then for several decades it was ruled by Communists, and only in the 1990s did freedom finally arrive. "Certainly it cannot be expected that we would instantly have the same democratic model as in the U.S., Germany, or France," Putin admitted. "Societies must develop stage by stage, gradually."Putin basically agreed that Russia was not democratic in the same ways as certain Western nations. The Russian president constitutionally has much more power than the American president. For example, Putin directly appoints regional governors, whereas in the U.S. state leaders are elected. But as Putin points out, Russia is not the U.S., and its democracy is only in its infancy - just over 2 decades. Keep all that in mind while reading the following account of the balancing act Putin must perform in ruling Russia.
As noted numerous times, Putin is not an all-powerful dictator. He is a soft authoritarian leader riding a relatively unstable or metastable 'sistema', state and society. One of his oft-discussed roles is as arbiter between institutions and elite clans seeking access to the state resource feeding trough. Another less discussed role is to balance various ideological orientations and political parties ranging across the entire political spectrum, state and society, allowing each to participate in Russia's political life within limits he largely sets. Some forces are allowed access to elements of power to one extent or another; others are kept at various distances from power centers and economic and financial resources controlled by the state, depending on their perceived controllability and potential to seriously weaken the regime should they defect to the opposition and thereby potentially threaten Putin's carefully balanced system. To be sure, when necessary Putin represses, but this must be done by carefully calibrating the extent to which he can repress and not provoke significant backlash.
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