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...
... broad-based support outside the ruling elites. Yet there are indications that such a support base may be slowly beginning to emerge.
Whatever the solution, it will have to involve more than just talking about exalted principles, like democracy, freedom, and human rights--important as these may be. The fate of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine is evidence of this. President Obama’s current problems also show how difficult it is to bring about the kind of “change that matters” which he promised,...
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...