Professor Richard Sakwa has his latest piece featured in Open Access Government, an examination of the Putin Paradox in relation to the current COVID-19 pandemic and if the Russian President is making a case for “managed democracy”.
The COVID-19 pandemic tests the Putinite polity to the limits. This is a question of governmental efficacy and trust in his leadership. Can a model of “managed democracy” deal with such a major crisis, with enormous implications for the standard of living and the economy. Do democracies deal better with such challenges, or can Putin-style authoritarianism demonstrate its validity by protecting the people and leading the country out of social and economic crisis? And which, with the magnified options of either, does a population prefer?
Read the article at https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/paradoxes-of-putinism/86955/.