Pål Kolstø, professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Oslo, has written extensively on nation-building and ethnic issues in Russia and Eastern Europe.
The image of Putin’s Russia as an authoritarian oil state attracts many Western analysts because it seems to carry a promise that falling oil prices will bring regime change. Thus,…
Does the election of Vladimir Putin as Russia’s president represent a fundamental turn away from democracy or merely a temporary setback? Although Putin’s apparent indifference to democracy is worrisome, it…
