Putin's Preventive Counter-Revolution: Post-Soviet Authoritarianism and the Spectre of Velvet Revolution

by Horvath; Robert

• ISBN13: 9780415694216
• ISBN10: 0415694213
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781136234903
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-10-08
• Publisher: Routledge
• More Book Details

Summary

This book examines the preventive counter-revolution undertaken by the Putin leadership in response to political instability - the colour revolutions - in the former post-Soviet republics and their potential to destabilise Russia itself. The author shows how seriously the Russian leadership took the colour revolutions, and how it developed policies that were intended to negate their influence. It argues that the leadership perceived the threat as coming more from internal unrest within Russia itself rather than from the danger of colour revolutions being exported into Russia from outside. It shows how the measures taken by the Russian leadership included using the techniques of the colour revolutions, such as mass demonstrations, to bolster the regime, and how the controls imposed by the Kremlin reduced the democratic process in Russia to an empty ritual. Using a wide range of Russian-language newspaper sources and Russian opposition activists'¬" blogs, the book charts the end of Russia'¬"s experiment with liberal democracy and the emergence of a new type of authoritarian order.