How Can Putin's Russia Be Best Understood?

In Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin's Russia, Timothy Frye presents a strong case for how Russia's current politics and policies cannot be fully understood as simply "a reflection either of Vladimir Putin's worldview or Russia's unique history and culture" (pp. vii–viii). Instead, Russia can—and should—be understood with reference to the growing social science literature on nondemocracies to see how Putin's Russia is similar to or different from other autocratic regimes.

Frye finds that Putin's Russia is more similar to other personalist autocracies than to autocracies ruled by organizations such as the military or a ruling party. Frye is quite persuasive in making his argument, showing in successive chapters how Putin's ability to maintain popularity, manipulate domestic elections, manage the economy, use repression, and control domestic media are all similar to what other personalist autocratic leaders have done (and continue to do) in other countries. What Frye shows so well is that Putin is not unique but can be better understood through comparison with other personalist autocrats. Indeed, the challenge for this reviewer is to try to find arguments about how to understand Putin's Russia that the author did not consider (but might respond to in his reply to this essay).

One is that while Putin's Russia is not a military or party dictatorship, it may be more similar to a theocratic regime such as the Islamic Republic of Iran than a personalist regime. For instance, Putin's and the Moscow patriarchy's conflation of Russian Orthodoxy with Russian great-power nationalism is similar to the way in which first Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and then Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have conflated their interpretation of Shiism with Iran's own great-power nationalism. In addition, the National Guard created under Putin in 2016 plays a similar role to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) in preserving not just the regime but its ideology. It might be argued that the National Guard is far more powerful in Russia than the Moscow Patriarchy. Scholars studying Iran, however, see the IRGC as having become stronger vis-à-vis the Shiite clergy. The increasingly dominant role the IRGC is playing in Iranian politics raises the possibility that the National Guard may follow a similar path in Russia.

Another possible comparison is Russia's trajectory as a great power compared to that of other great powers. Russia has experienced many setbacks in its long history (including the "Time of Troubles," the Napoleonic invasion, the Crimean War, World War I, the Nazi invasion, and the collapse of the Soviet Union), but it has managed to rebound after each one. Russia is not alone in this; other great powers have also experienced rebounds after setbacks (including the British Empire after the American Revolution and Napoleonic Wars; France after the Napoleonic Wars; Germany after World War I; and the United States after the Civil War and the Vietnam War). But sometimes great powers experience setbacks severe enough to end their great-power status (such as Spain after the loss of its Western Hemisphere colonies, and Germany, Japan, France, and Britain after World War II). If Russia continues to do badly in its current war against Ukraine, will it be able to bounce back or will this experience irrevocably diminish its ability to act like a great power at a time when other powers are rising? Comparisons with other cases would be useful.

Frye does note, however, that, "with its size, nuclear weapons, and legacy as a superpower, Russia is an unusual autocracy in foreign affairs" (p. 37). Russia's large nuclear arsenal suggests that it will remain a great power—or does it? Moscow's possession of this arsenal did not prevent the Soviet Union from collapsing in 1991 and is not preventing Russia from performing so poorly in its war against Ukraine now.

Assuming that Russia does remain a great power, comparing Russia to other personalist autocracies may not be so useful in terms of understanding Putin's foreign policy as it is for Russian domestic policies. It does seem useful...