Putin's Leadership: Character and Consequences (original) (raw)
VLADIMIR PUTIN'S LEADERSHIP WAS RIVEN WITH CONTRADICTIONS, and on the basis of these contradictions very different evaluations of his presidency are possible. The contradictions themselves became a source of Putin's power. They allowed him to act in several different political and discursive spheres at the same time, with a degree of credibility in each, although their genuine authenticity was questioned. Arriving into the presidency in 2000 Putin declared his goal as the 'dictatorship of law', and indeed this principle was exercised in the attempt to overcome the legal fragmentation of the country in the federal system; but when it came to pursuing regime goals, it appeared more often than not that the system ruled by law rather than ensuring the rule of law. This is just one example, and there are many more—the revival of the party system, the development of civil society, international integration—where the declared principle was vitiated by contrary practices. The most interesting debates about Putin's leadership are precisely those that examine whether the tensions were contradictions, and thus amenable to resolution (non-antagonistic), or whether they were antinomies (antagonistic contradictions) that could not be resolved within the framework of the system itself. The first option allowed an evolutionary transcendence of the Putinite order; whereas the second would require some sort of revolutionary rupture. Challenges and contradictions Putin's presidency did not operate in a vacuum, and too often easy judgements are made on the basis of a decontextualised absolutism of principles which fails to engage with the real challenges faced by the Russian government during Putin's watch at the helm of the Russian state. The challenge from the Chechen insurgency, accompanied by incursions beyond the republic—into Dagestan, and even into Moscow with the Dubrovka theatre siege of October 2002, as well as the terrible siege of the school in Beslan in September 2004 in which 364 died—would test the political order of even the most long-established democracy. In foreign policy, the terms on which Russia would be accepted into the international community reflected certain postulates that alarmed parts of the ruling elite in Moscow (issues discussed by Angela Stent and Fyodor Lukyanov in this collection). Teleological applications of the transition paradigm, which focused on the mechanics of democracy building and consolidation but neglected history and geopolitics, were tested to destruction in Russia. This reinforced
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