The Wikipedia article on Putin is quite balanced, and gives a brief summary of his career. It should help you understand what kind of leader Putin is.
Whether or not Putin can reasonably be called a “dictator” is a more difficult question to answer. The concept “dictator” is vague, used in many different senses, and its meaning is in large part in the mind of the beholder.
You can read the Wikipedia article on dictatorship, but it won’t help you much. Some dictatorships...
- Опубликовано:
- 25.09.2016 03:39:00
In totalitarian countries . .
The government tortures, kills and suppresses unions and the press.
Whereas in authoritarian countries . .
These functions are left to the private sector.
Jules Feiffer cartoon on statement by former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Jean Kirkpatrick
In order to judge whether there has been a “rollback of democracy” in Russia, we need to be clear about what is meant by the democratic state of affairs believed to exist before democracy was “rolled back.”...
- Опубликовано:
- 16.02.2016 05:08:00
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/d%C3%A9tente-plus-how-should-west-deal-russia
“Leslie Gelb speaks for much of the US foreign policy establishment, writes Walter Laquer, “when he says that ... ‘It is totally unrealistic . . . to think that the West can gain desired Russian restraint and cooperation without dealing with Moscow as a great power that possesses real and legitimate interests, especially in its border areas’.”
In contrast to Gelb, Cold Warrior...
- Опубликовано:
- 13.11.2015 03:39:00
Of course, I understand what you write about the sorry state of affairs in Russia. I am far more optimistic than you about Russia, but can't disagree with most of what you say. Most discouraging is that I wonder what can feed the hopes of your generation, on which the future of the country depends. Of course, there is much about Russia that is good, and which gives grounds for hope. Yet, this does not negate your arguments.
To be sure, there has been enormous progress in the last twenty...
- Опубликовано:
- 16.03.2015 15:56:00
If I were a Russian citizen, I would be somewhat troubled by recent Russian legislation requiring foreign-funded Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to register as foreign agents. However, as a social scientist I see the Universe unfolding as it should in Russia.
The widespread view that civil society is being rolled back rests on a mistaken assumption that civil society can be rolled back by actions of governments. On the contrary civil society is autonomous, by definition. It has a life of...
- Опубликовано:
- 01.02.2015 09:56:00
