Putin's Leadership: Character and Consequences

Abstract

VLADIMIR PUTIN’S LEADERSHIP WAS RIVEN WITH CONTRADICTIONS, and on the basis of these contradictions very different evaluations of his presidency are possible. The contradictions themselves became a source of Putin’s power. They allowed him to act in several different political and discursive spheres at the same time, with a degree of credibility in each, although their genuine authenticity was questioned. Arriving into the presidency in 2000 Putin declared his goal as the ‘dictatorship of law’, and indeed this principle was exercised in the attempt to overcome the legal fragmentation of the country in the federal system; but when it came to pursuing regime goals, it appeared more often than not that the system ruled by law rather than ensuring the rule of law. This is just one example, and there are many more—the revival of the party system, the development of civil society, international integration—where the declared principle was vitiated by contrary practices. The most interesting debates about Putin’s leadership are precisely those that examine whether the tensions were contradictions, and thus amenable to resolution (non-antagonistic), or whether they were antinomies (antagonistic contradictions) that could not be resolved within the framework of the system itself. The first option allowed an evolutionary transcendence of the Putinite order; whereas the second would require some sort of revolutionary rupture. Challenges and contradictions