Superpower Ambitions Weaken Russia
In an opinion editorial for The Moscow Times, Irina Busygina, a professor of political science and director of the Center for Regional Political Studies at Moscow State University for International Relations, and Mikhail Filippov, a professor of political science at Binghamton University in New York, comment that superpower ambitions have weakened Russia.
Busygina and Filippov note that over the past decade, Russia has made repeated attempts to demonstrate its growing power to the world. They comment that the divide between Russia's efforts to regain its superpower status and the extremely modest results it has achieved stems from the fact that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's vertical power structure is a clumsy hybrid of authoritarianism and some elements of democracy. They argue that liberal democratic governments - and in some ways, strangely enough, even 100% authoritarian regimes - are more effective than hybrid regimes.
The hybrid nature of Russia's political regime makes it harder for the country to project itself as a superpower. Busygina and Filippov argue that to become an attractive partner, Russia must formulate predictable and consistent domestic and foreign policies. It must have properly functioning democratic institutions and restrain its imperial ambitions. In the absence of such institutions, it is impossible to predict Russian policy.
Without a full-fledged democracy, it would be unrealistic to expect Russia's potential allies to trust the Kremlin's intentions. The authors conclude that by maintaining a hybrid regime that combines elements of authoritarianism and electoral democracy, Russia effectively dooms itself to isolation in one form or another and loss of influence in the global arena.