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The Roots of Authoritarianism in Russia

I n The Code of Putinism, Brian Taylor presents a balanced, informed portrait of Putin and the system of “Putinism.” The book covers an impressively broad sweep of relevant topics in Russian politics and society, from the state of the roads to the war in Syria. Taylor rejects simplistic portrayals of Putin as a self-interested kleptocrat, noting that central to his world view—and his actions—is the restoration of Russia as a great power. Putin’s international ambition and domestic political “code” are two sides of the same coin: the former justifies and reinforces the latter. Putinism is a combination of what Taylor calls “hyperpresidentialism” and informal clan understandings. This “code” has proved effective in stabilizing the political system, reviving the economy, and restoring Russia’s great-power status, but Russia eventually will need to make the transition from a personalistic to a rule-based system because this has not been achieved on Putin’s watch. The central question lurking behind Taylor’s account, to which there is no easy answer, is to what extent Putinism is tied to the person of Putin. Did Putin create the system, or did the system create Putin? How much freedom of maneuver does he really have—is he a personal dictator or merely a broker, resolving disputes between rival clans and bureaucracies? Taylor portrays Putin as a fixer at the center of a web of informal networks (p. 79), yet also argues that he is “the boss,” endorsing “the image of Putin as a powerful tsar, the ruler who can dismiss any other official at any time and to whom all other officials owe their position” (p. 104). By contrast, no less an authority than Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the exiled oligarch turned opposition activist, sees Putin as a weak leader, controlled by criminal groups.1 As a result, his capacity to effect significant policy change has been stymied by bureaucratic inertia and popular protest. One way of approaching this question is to ask about the origins of Putinism. The book basically starts the story in 2000 and does not probe the question of origins at length. Taylor briefly discusses Putinism’s relationship