The Putin Myth

The quality of governance declined gradually over the last decade and thus undermined the narrative of competence Putin built during his first two terms as president. The regime has been relying less on persuasion and more on scaring its population since 2012—a trend accelerating with the setbacks of Russian military actions in Ukraine. That ill-fated war now risks the complete annihilation of the myth of autocratic competence. The Russian example underlines the value of identifying and analyzing changes in the quality of autocracies and invites a better understanding of why autocracies become more reliant on violent repression rather than spinning an informational narrative of legitimacy and competence.

If Ukraine has become the beachhead for global democracy, then Russia is the vanguard of modern autocracy. During Vladimir Putin's 23 years in power, Russia's system of government has devolved from open, even fractious politics under his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin (1991-99), to a highly repressive, personalistic autocracy that threatens not just its immediate neighbors but increasingly its own citizens. Of course, the Russian war on Ukraine should first and foremost be understood as an assault on Ukrainians. But it has also brought decisively to an end the liberalization of politics within Russia itself-a process which began under Mikhail Gorbachev (1985–91) ahead of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The authoritarianism that first developed gradually under Putin, deepening over time, has dramatically ratcheted up since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Russia suffered "the biggest democratic decline of any country in the world" in 2022, tumbling 22 places to the rank of 146th-just ahead of Venezuela-out of 167 countries on the EIU's Global Democracy Index.1 What were the causes of the deepening of authoritarianism in Russia, and why has the war in Ukraine dramatically accelerated this trajectory?

Until recently, it was assumed that modern autocracies-whether Putin's Russia, Viktor Orbán's Hungary, or Xi Jinping's China-exert control over their people at least in part by manipulating their beliefs and perceptions about the world: "In place of harsh repressions, the new dictators manipulate information. Like spin doctors in a democracy, they spin the news to engineer support."2 For a long period in Russia, this practice relieved Putin's regime from over-reliance on state-sponsored repression (which can be messy, expensive, and less effective) to instill fear and promote passivity in the population.

As the quality of governance in Russia has been going downhill since 2012, the regime has been gradually but surely relying less on persuasion and more on generating fear in its population—a trend that has gained steam in the face of Russian military failures in the last year in Ukraine. Because it is vital that the Russian people not learn how poorly the campaign is going, the Kremlin has resorted to full censorship of the news. Should word of losses in Ukraine get out and inflame popular anger, however, the regime has introduced draconian penalties to deter people from doing anything about it: activities which were legal a year ago are today punishable with steep fines, jail time-or worse.

Evolution of the Russian Autocracy

A parade of terminology to capture the spirit of "Putinism" has evolved in parallel with changes in the nature of Putin's regime-from "managed democracy" early in his second presidential term (2004-2008), to "competitive authoritarianism" with a "kleptocratic" political economy, to "personalistic, autocratic, conservative, populism" or simply "dictatorship" after 2012.3 Russia's political system under Putin clearly did not start out in 2000 as a full-blown repressive autocracy; rather, it hardened over time, and has now solidified into an especially repressive form of authoritarianism as the military's failures in Ukraine undermine the myth of the regime's governing competence. In general, the trajectory of the steep decline into authoritarianism under Putin was gradual in the beginning, implemented and consolidated through an erosion accomplished bit by bit, well underway no later than two years after his arrival to the presidency in 2000: a rise in politically appointive rather than freely electively office, a gradual chipping away at media freedoms, and its fragile system of rule of law with clear rule by law-first used against recalcitrant oligarchs in the early 2000s, and then used against opposition figures with a brutality that increased with each passing year.

Political and economic liberalization programs rebounded somewhat after 2008, when Putin traded the presidency for the prime minister's office with the loyal (and now maniacally nationalist) Dmitri Medvedev. But with Putin's return to the presidency in 2012, civil liberties, tolerance of opposition politics in all but the narrowest of terms,