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Putin's Decline and America's Response

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By Anders Aslund
Published on Aug 1, 2005

Source: Carnegie Endowment

Russia’s regime has gone through a major aggravation during the first year of President Vladimir Putin’s second term. The regime suffers from serious overcentralization of power, which has led to a paralysis of policy making. Putin’s power base has been shrunk to a core of secret policemen from St. Petersburg. Although his popularity remains high, it is falling. Neither unbiased information nor negative feedback is accepted. As a result, the Putin regime is much more fragile than generally understood. Russia’s current abandonment of democracy is an anomaly for such a developed and relatively wealthy country, and it has made Russia’s interests part from those of the United States.

In this new Policy Brief, Carnegie senior associate Anders Aslund asserts that the United States should not hesitate to promote democracy in Russia, while pragmatically pursuing common interests in nonproliferation and energy.

Click on the link above for the full text of this Carnegie publication.

A limited number of print copies are available.
Request a copy

About the Author
Anders Åslund is the director of the Russian and Eurasian Program and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment.  He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and co-directs the Carnegie Moscow Center's project on Economies of the Post-Soviet States. He is the author of Building Capitalism: The Transformation of the Former Soviet Bloc and Betraying a Revolution (Washington Post, May 2005).

About the Author

Anders Aslund

Former Senior Associate, Director, Russian and Eurasian Program

    Recent Work

  • Testimony
    Democracy in Retreat in Russia

      Anders Aslund

  • Report
    Blue Ribbon Commission Proposes “New Wave” of Reforms for Ukraine

      Anders Aslund, Oleksandr Paskhaver

Anders Aslund
Former Senior Associate, Director, Russian and Eurasian Program
Anders Aslund
Political ReformDemocracyForeign PolicyNorth AmericaUnited StatesCaucasusRussia

Carnegie India does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

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