M. Steven Fish is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Comeback: Routing Trumpism, Reclaiming the Nation, and Restoring Democracy’s Edge (2024).
Even if Vladimir Putin were to lose his grip on office, the “Russian system” might only wind up exchanging one form of personalized power for another in its endless search for…
A few years ago, Europe’s most important intergovernmental human-rights institution, the Council of Europe, crossed over to the dark side. Like Dorian Gray, the dandy in Oscar Wilde’s story of moral decay,…
At the end of the Cold War, semipresidentialism became the modal constitution of the postcommunist world. In Russia and other post-Soviet states, however, this system of government has impeded consolidation.
