What explains the durability of the Putin system? Most countries at Russia's level of wealth, education, and urbanization, and most of Russia's neighbors in Europe, are democracies. But as Russia marks the twentieth anniversary of rule by Vladimir Putin, and as it approaches the thirtieth anniversary of its foundation as an independent state, autocracy seems entrenched. Three new books ask why. Anders Åslund's Russia's Crony Capitalism places blame squarely on President Putin and his allies, arguing that they could have pursued different policies but chose instead to line their pockets, using the autocrats’ toolkit to keep rivals away from the feeding trough. Samuel Greene and Graeme Robertson's Putin v. the People, by contrast, suggests that Russian autocracy has been constructed not only from the top down, but also from the bottom up, with popular attitudes and acquiescence helping to stabilize autocratic governance. Longtime Russian politician Grigory Yavlinsky sees even deeper factors at play in his book The Putin System: An Opposing View, which argues that Russia's style of governance is explained by economic and institutional structures that demonstrate continuity between the Yeltsin and Putin eras.

Åslund's argument—that Putin caused Russia's authoritarian turn—is the explanation most commonly aired in western media. Åslund views the years around 2000, when Putin first took power, as a historical turning point. In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, “Russia had never been so free and open.”Footnote ¹ Yeltsin may have had a “complex legacy,” Åslund writes, but Russia's first president had a mostly positive impact: he was an “unquestioned leader…the most impressive man I ever saw…a truly great leader.”Footnote ² Under Yeltsin, Åslund argues, Russia's politics were competitive, at times violently so, and its media was disputatious, if not always balanced. Russia in the 1990s met the basic tests of democratic governance, Åslund argues. Yeltsin's main mistakes were in not going far enough to tear down the Soviet system. The KGB was renamed and reorganized, but Yeltsin declined to lustrate the security services, forging alliances with parts of the security bloc instead.Footnote ³ It was this decision, Åslund argues, that laid the ground for the resurgence of autocracy.

The decision to not lustrate the security services made a return to autocracy possible, Åslund argues, but it was made inevitable by the choices of one man and his hangers-on. Upon being named prime minister and then acting president, Vladimir Putin has forged a “Russian model of crony capitalism,” Åslund argues.Footnote ⁴ What differentiates this system from the Yeltsin era that preceded it? One distinguishing factor, Åslund asserts, is its links to organized crime: “Putin appears to have been so entrenched in organized crime since the early 1990s in St. Petersburg that it has become part of his very being.”Footnote ⁵ Surely the mafias were, if anything, even more powerful in the 1990s, a critic might ask, with Putin's St. Petersburg providing the most vivid example of mafia strength? Perhaps, Åslund would retort, but whereas the mafias in the 1990s were diffuse, now their activities have been merged with the state structure and they are to a greater degree centrally directed.Footnote ⁶ Disputes such as that over Vostochy Bank and the a rrest of US investor Michael Calvey provide evidence in favor of Åslund's thesis that mafia activity, far from declining, has been nationalized.Footnote ⁷

A second differentiating factor between the 1990s and the 2000s, Åslund argues, is the Kremlin's centralization of control over corruption rents, especially from the energy and banking sectors. The 1990s saw the theft of state resources on a monumental scale, but Åslund is right to note that the structure of corruption has changed. Then, the Kremlin's key role was as a balancer of competing oligarchs who often seemed more politically powerful than Yeltsin. Political analysts still describe Putin as balancing different factions within the Russian elite. There are no anti-Putin oligarchs left in Russia, however, and many of the men who have replaced the oligarchs of the 1990s are longtime Putin associates. “Many still talk about Russia as an oligarchy,” Åslund argues, “but oligarchy…implies some balance between different forces based on wealth. In Putin's Russia, the central state rules, and there is no balance of power.”Footnote ⁸ The key shift, Åslund argues, was the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovskii, which marked the transition from oligarchy to an authoritarian system.Footnote ⁹

What motivated this shift? Greed, Åslund says—the greed of Putin and his key associates. “Putin has usurped Russia's large energy rents to build his crony capitalism. Energy rents have made that possible, but the choice has been his.”Footnote ¹⁰ Hence, longtime associates such as Gennady Timchenko, Arkady Rotenberg, and Yuri Kovalchuk have become billionaires, thanks in no small part, Åslund argues, to schemes that siphon money from the government budget.Footnote ¹¹ Putin's KGB background, Åslund argues, has given Putin a skillset and a network.Footnote ¹² His education in the security organs meant that Russia's president had no ideological objection to autocratic governance. But the shift toward autocracy was not, in Åslund's view, primarily ideological: “How strongly ideology motivates the Putin regime is up for debate,” Åslund writes, but “the true aims of this regime are personal enrichment.”Footnote ¹³

Samuel Greene and Graeme Robertson's account of Russian politics, Putin v. the People, provides a very different view of the Putin system than does Åslund. The difference in perspective is not primarily about what has changed under Putin—they, too, see an authoritarian shift that accompanied his consolidation of power—but rather a debate about what made it possible. Where Åslund focuses on Putin's decisions, Greene and Robertson describe the political context. Russian society, and the country's politics, have created the Putin system, they argue. “The power generally ascribed to Putin himself actually stems from millions of private citizens willingly acting as unprompted enforcers of Putin's power in society.” “At the extreme,” this means seeking to “enforce Putin's will by beating or even murdering his critics.” More commonly, what they call the “co-construction” of Putin's system means “reinforcing Putin's power in more mundane ways, through small-scale social pressure: the boss who insists his employees vote; the school teacher who inculcates uncritical acceptance of official stories of Putin's heroism; the friends who mistake support for Putin for patriotism. These are the real sources of Putin's power today.”Footnote ¹⁴

How does the “co-construction” of Russian autocracy work? Greene and Robertson argue that public opinion is a crucial factor in legitimating Russia's elites and shaping Russian politics. Hence, “Putin takes his approval ratings very seriously and is an avid reader of opinion polls.”Footnote ¹⁵ Putin has succeeded in politics because he “has been able to rise above the normal push and pull of politics not by force alone, but because he has been lifted up by millions of Russian people.”Footnote ¹⁶ How did he accomplish this goal? In part, the authors argue, by careful control of the media—a factor with which Åslund would heartily agree. But media control is necessary but not sufficient, Greene and Robertson suggest. It is only half of the “co-construction” process. The other half is a population that is not only receptive to the messages pushed by state-controlled media, but is willing to support them actively.

A key analytical question that Greene and Robertson face is the chicken-and-egg dilemma between popular views and propaganda. Has propaganda created a politically-quiescent populace, or is the Russian populace willing to accept whatever propaganda the government offers? Their answer is both—a response that may frustrate their fellow political scientists but which seems the most honest. The authors’ argument about the deployment of propaganda covers ground familiar to observers of Russian politics: the whipping up of a wave of nationalist sentiment over Crimea, the use of issues such as gay rights to drive a wedge between liberal and conservative groups, and the Kremlin's success at controlling the political narrative more generally. More innovative is the authors’ discussion of what factors make the Russian population politically unique—or at least different from the western polities with which Russia is often compared.

What are these differentiating factors? One difference, the authors argue, is the power of nationalism in Russian politics. In their studies of public opinion, the authors found that “despite the division among urbanites on key political issues of the day, there was enormous unity on questions related to nationalism and identity.”Footnote ¹⁷ The elevated resonance of nationalist politics made post-Crimea euphoria unique. To be sure, Greene and Robertson argue, rally-around-the-flag responses to crises are common in politics, but the post-Crimea “rally is different,” the authors argue, “the clearest evidence of which is the fact that it lasted so long”—longer than the post 9/11 rally that George W. Bush received or the post-Falklands War bump that benefited Margaret Thatcher.Footnote ¹⁸ In emphasizing the impact of nationalism, the authors confront again the question of causality. Did propaganda enable Krym nash sentiment, or did deeply engrained nationalism enable propaganda? There is no easy answer, but their assertion that great power nationalism is particularly important in Russian politics, even in comparison with nationalistic politics in countries such as the United States, seems plausible.

A second factor that makes Russian politics different, Greene and Robertson argue, is that “criticism and disloyalty are closely associated with each other. To take a stand and criticize the president is to risk social censure and…[even] physical attack.”Footnote ¹⁹ The authors argue that this has been activated by the Russian government's control of the media, but that it has deeper roots. Post-Soviet Russia, they argue, has never had “real ideological divides” between liberals and conservatives of the type that motivate politics in the west. This, combined with “the importance of nationalism,” means that, “unlike in the United States and Western Europe, there is little evidence that ideology has much to do with support for political parties.”Footnote ²⁰ Thus, politics is a type of conformism, in which opposition is not solely a statement of political preference but a matter of “conforming [or rejecting] socially accepted standards of opinion and attitudes.”Footnote ²¹ Loyal opposition is not an option. Hence, the authors’ research finds that individuals most interested in social approval, people “who think of themselves as sympathetic and warm, rather than critical and quarrelsome…were seven times more likely to vote for Putin.”Footnote ²² Not voting for Putin would have been tantamount to an anti-social behavior.

Grigory Yavlinsky is one of those Russians who is unlikely to have ever voted for Putin. A longtime leader of Russia's liberal opposition, chair of the Yabloko Party, and frequent presidential candidate, Yavlinsky might be expected to have the most critical view of Putin, his ostensible political rival. Yet of the books under review here, Yavlinsky's The Putin System: An Opposing View is in many ways the most empathetic interpretation of the Putin system. Both Russia's Crony Capitalism and Putin v. the People see Putin has having presided over an authoritarian consolidation of Russia's politics. Yavlinsky is not so sure. Looking at the 1990s, he sees continuity as much as change. Given that Yavlinsky was as much a political rival to Yeltsin as to Putin, his interpretation of both presidents as autocrats is perhaps not surprising. But he has a case to make: Yeltsin did, after all, resolve the country's 1993 constitutional crisis with violence, and he presided over a political system that was by some metrics even less responsive to popular demands than is the current one.

Thus Yavlinsky sees it as “wrong to portray the turn of the century as a critical turning point” from democracy to autocracy.Footnote ²³ Yavlinsky anticipates Åslund's argument about the fragmented power in the 1990s being displaced by a centralized politics under Putin, admitting that Putin's Kremlin is “a cohesive, dominant group tightly knit together through rigid internal discipline.”Footnote ²⁴ He acknowledges, too, the greater “pluralism” of the 1990s.Footnote ²⁵ But “it would be disingenuous, if not outright shameless, to present the 1990s in Russia as a time of the blossoming of parliamentary government, under which the next team of key officeholders is determined through elections whose outcome has not been fixed in advance,” he declares.Footnote ²⁶ Yet his critique of Yeltsin draws misleading comparisons between the two political eras. Yavlinsky's claim that “back then, just as in today's Russia…[the political elite] was decided by the arbitrary will of one man” substantially overstates Yeltsin's power.Footnote ²⁷ So, too, does the argument that in the 1990s “the correlation of power among different groups and factions within the system of government had nothing to do with the results of an election”—particularly given the epic clashes between Yeltsin and the elected legislature, dominated in the first half of the 1990s by opposition parties, especially the communists.Footnote ²⁸ Finally, Yavlinsky's claim that “the dominant elite group” around Yeltsin could “manipulate all other groups” does not seem accurate.Footnote ²⁹ In 1998, Gazprom chief Rem Vyakhirev is said to have told Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko that he was just a “little boy,” after Yeltsin sent Kirienko to collect more tax from Gazprom.Footnote ³⁰ It is difficult to imagine one of Putin's envoys being treated similarly today.

Nevertheless, Yavlinsky is right to note some continuities between the Yeltsin and Putin eras. Neither political system was particularly responsive to the popular will, and neither found a form of political engagement that extended beyond the confrontation of different groups of elites. Yavlinsky explains this by what he sees as Russia's “peripheral capitalism,” which “continues to demonstrate psychological and economic dependence upon leading industrial powers” and in which “many of Russia's policies result from its leadership's resentment over being treated as a peripheral player.”Footnote ³¹ This analysis of Russia being “on the periphery” might strike some western scholars as drawing on Immanuel Wallerstein's world systems approach, though its intellectual origins are probably better sought in the critical Marxist lenses that late Soviet intellectuals applied to the Soviet Union itself.

What is the link between “peripheral capitalism”—a country that funds imports of technology with exports of commodities—and authoritarian politics?Footnote ³² Yavlinsky gestures toward the familiar argument that a country needs a bourgeoisie or a middle class to sustain representative government. “Russians had no idea about any forms of property ownership,” Yavlinsky argues, which helps explain why it is “psychologically impossible for most Russians to separate the functions and powers of government authority from the functions and powers of that sole individual who is ensconced at the top.”Footnote ³³ Like Greene and Robertson, in other words, popular acquiescence is a major factor in Yavlinsky's account of authoritarian resilience in Russia. New research by scholars such as Bryn Rosenfeld has provided evidence in support of the thesis that Russia's middle class is different, in part because of its reliance on the state for sustenance.Footnote ³⁴

Yet “not everything in a given society is reducible to its economic foundations,” Yavlinsky notes, and the most interesting part of his analysis is that “many of Russia's policies result from its leadership's resentment over being treated as a peripheral player.”Footnote ³⁵ This search for status explains many aspects of Russia's foreign policy, including its relationship with the west and its insistence on its status as a great power. Yet do status concerns explain Russia's domestic politics? Of the two key differentiating factors in Russian politics that Greene and Robertson identify, the salience of nationalism might be ascribed to Russia's “peripheral” status if, as seems plausible, Russia's populace is just as aware—and sensitive—about status as are the country's elites.

Each of the three books under review emphasize different causes of Russia's authoritarian politics, yet each also tries to end on an optimistic note. Åslund's analysis provides the greatest basis of optimism: if authoritarian governance is primarily Putin's doing, Putin's eventual exit from the scene could provide a catalyst for change. Åslund vocally opposes the thesis that Russian society or the Russian people are somehow destined for rule by a strong hand: “Far too often, people claim ‘Russia has always been like that,’ but during the past three decades the changes in Russia have been monumental,” he notes.Footnote ³⁶ Many analysts—Åslund cites Richard Pipes—have claimed that Russia is inclined to “a conservatism that insisted on strong, centralized authority,” but Åslund also emphasizes the deep “liberal tradition” in Russian politics, though his citation of Alexander Hertzen is a reminder that Russia's great liberals have often lived in London and Paris rather than in the Kremlin.Footnote ³⁷ Nevertheless, he argues, “Russia's exceptionalism from continental Europe must not be exaggerated.”Footnote ³⁸ Putin's rule is based on control of “the top television channels” and the “deliberate” creation of a “model of crony capitalism” that recreates “an ancient patrimonial model.”Footnote ³⁹ But the reemergence of this model under Putin was “not ordained by history, culture, or circumstance.”Footnote ⁴⁰ It is Putin's system and there is no guarantee it will outlast him. Indeed, Åslund insists, it is “unlikely to persist.”Footnote ⁴¹ Only time will tell. The substantial continuities between the Yeltsin and Putin eras, however, suggest that even Putin's exit is not guaranteed to create a liberal democracy immediately.

Greene and Robertson also end their book on an optimistic note, arguing that “it would be hard to simply replace Putin with some less prominent figure from the existing elite, as happened in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.”Footnote ⁴² Yet their analysis left me with less optimism. If the Putin system was the result of “co-creation,” there is less reason to think that a democratic polity will emerge after Putin's exit. Even if the co-creator in the Kremlin leaves the scene, his partner—the Russian polity—will remain. Where Åslund insists that “Russia's exceptionalism from Continental Europe must not be exaggerated,” Greene and Robertson see plenty of factors that make Russia different. One is that “support for the ‘liberal’ elements of democracy is substantially lower” than in other countries.Footnote ⁴³ A second is a different view on the “trade-off between order and freedom.”Footnote ⁴⁴

Greene and Robertson insist that “we are not arguing…[that Russia] is doomed to eternal autocracy” nor that “Russians themselves are somehow predisposed—culturally, psychologically, genetically, or otherwise—to rule by a strong hand.”Footnote ⁴⁵ Yet their evidence that authoritarian politics found fertile ground in Russian politics does suggest that a Putinesque system could be rebuilt around a new personality after Putin exits. If Putin's support is largely explained by propaganda, the emergence of a free media should catalyze the creation of a free political system. But if Greene and Robertson are correct that although the Kremlin's narrative has been bolstered by control of TV, the propagandistic narratives “resonated with the Russian public, binding millions of Russians to the regime with an emotional connection,” how sure can we be that after Putin, an authoritarian system might not reassert itself, and be supported by the populace in the process?Footnote ⁴⁶ After all, Greene and Robertson argue, “people select media according to their tastes, and they are guided by their social circles,” so “if the majority of people are willing to consume state-sponsored news—and if they are open to the messages that they receive—then the propaganda” can succeed in establishing an authoritarian system.Footnote ⁴⁷ This is one interpretation of how Putin appears to have so easily consolidated power in the early 2000s. Will his successor have more difficulty in managing the media and controlling the political narrative?

Even Yavlinsky, whose structural account of the Putin System suggests inevitability, nevertheless argues that “Russia's present-day peripheral authoritarianism is…headed toward a dead end of demodernization,” which suggests that it might ultimately come to an end.Footnote ⁴⁸ Yavlinsky provides no clarity about how a new system might emerge. Some authoritarian systems modernize their societies—Yavlinsky cites Singapore, Turkey, South Korea, and Japan—but he argues that the Putin System is not modernizing anything.Footnote ⁴⁹ Thus, Russia's “peripheral” status and its economic structure are likely to persist. Indeed, it may only be deepening, as corruption transforms “the entirety of public consciousness,” deepening the attitudes that Yavlinsky sees as “peripheral.”Footnote ⁵⁰ In such a context, what room is there for optimism about casting off authoritarian governance?

In his preface, Yavlinsky argues that “the possibility of a less authoritarian, less xenophobic and overall less dangerous Russia primarily hinges upon the resurgence of democratic political and civic institutions in the west.”Footnote ⁵¹ Although Yavlinsky does not elaborate on this, one could perhaps argue that a west more open to integrating Russia could potentially assuage Russia's status sensitivities that result from its “peripheral” status. The argument that Russia's future depends primarily on external factors fits with the structural analysis that Yavlinsky thinks best explains Russian politics. This is a curious intellectual position for a leader of one of Russia's most prominent opposition parties, however. For if Russian politics will be determined above all by external factors, what point is there of political action inside Russia? Yavlinsky's structural analysis provides little basis to expect that opposition politics could succeed at transforming Russia. Yet the more that Russians believe that the current system will inevitably persist, the more they risk slipping into the role of Greene and Robertson's “co-creators.”