{"id":17687,"date":"2022-05-14T06:57:14","date_gmt":"2022-05-14T04:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/?p=17687"},"modified":"2022-05-14T06:58:46","modified_gmt":"2022-05-14T04:58:46","slug":"rooting-russias-politics-in-common-patterns-of-autocratic-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wehle.ru\/wp\/?p=17687","title":{"rendered":"Rooting Russia\u2019s politics in <span style=\"white-space: nowrap;\">common<\/span> patterns of <span style=\"white-space: nowrap;\">autocratic<\/span> rule"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\nAutocrats face hard choices about rewarding narrow interest groups or pursuing policies with broader benefits, using repression or persuasion against political opponents, and choosing how much to censor the media, cheat in elections, and violate human rights in order to stay in power. Rather than flowing directly from Putin\u2019s worldview or Russia\u2019s historical legacy, policy choices in Russia are often the result of difficult trade-offs among and between political elites and the mass public.<\/p>\n<p>Third, personalist autocracies have a range of tools\u2014all rather blunt\u2014for managing a modern society. Much popular commentary revolves around Putin as a master of repression to keep society in check. And it is true that crackdowns on free media, intimidation of political opponents, and arrests of human rights activists are part and parcel of political life in Russia. But repression is costly, not always effective, and rarely a first choice. Influential elites and the mass public do not automatically follow the leader but instead need to be convinced to do so, sometimes via fear, yet also via persuasion or self-interest. Autocrats like Putin prefer to rely on personal popularity, economic performance, manipulated elections, and foreign policy successes to stave off elite coups and popular revolts, but these commodities are usually fleeting and beyond the control of the ruler.<\/p>\n<p>From this perspective, a view of Russia emerges that is less focused on President Putin\u2019s personality and seeming omnipotence, and less centered on Russia\u2019s unique history and culture. Rooting Russia\u2019s politics in common patterns of autocratic rule produces a picture of Russia that helps us see the constraints on Putin\u2019s power, recognize the difficult policy choices before him, and better understand Russia\u2019s politics.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;\">\u2014Timothy Frye, <em>Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin\u2019s Russia<\/em>, (Princeton: <span style=\"white-space: nowrap;\">Princeton University Press<\/span>, <span style=\"white-space: nowrap;\">2021), 23<\/span>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This really seems the thrust of Frye&#8217;s work here. I found myself rereading this passage several times because it is so at odds with the tenor of the bulk of Ukraine war coverage I see each day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Autocrats face hard choices about rewarding narrow interest groups or pursuing policies with broader benefits, using repression or persuasion against political opponents, and choosing how much to censor the media, cheat in elections, and violate human rights in order to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wehle.ru\/wp\/?p=17687\">Weiterlesen <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wehle.ru\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wehle.ru\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wehle.ru\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wehle.ru\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wehle.ru\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wehle.ru\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wehle.ru\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wehle.ru\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wehle.ru\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}