Vladimir Putin and the future of Russia

VLADIMIR PUTIN AND THE FUTURE OF RUSSIA
Andrej Kolesnikov in conversation with Nina Khrushcheva

Andrej Kolesnikov: Russian Journalist. He is a senior fellow and the chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Nina Khrushcheva: Professor of International Affairs, the New School, New York; Senior Fellow of the World Policy Institute and the Bruno Kreisky Forum.

In hosting Andrej Kolesnikov and Nina Khrushcheva, the Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue continues its multi-year effort to muster the truth behind the persistent negative perceptions that govern Western understanding of Russia, those perceptions defining Western approaches toward the country. Do the Russian people need Vladimir Putin’s strong-hand government in order to keep their global status of a major power? What are the undercurrents of Russia’s political scene? If the country holds absolutely fair and free elections, will Putin still get the majority of the vote? What is the view of the people outside of the metropoles of Moscow and Saint Petersburg? What is the role of the remaining civic institutions under the increasingly restrictive Kremlin rule?

RUSSIA ON THE WORLD STAGE
Russia is the largest country in the world, yet it suffers from demographic decline and arrested modernization. Its economy is over dependent on exporting natural resources. Its population has one of the highest percentages of university-educated people but the lowest labor productivity in the industrialized world. And although Mr. Putin is a strong and assertive leader who has been enjoying enough popular support at home and larger than life status abroad, many Russia’s institutions are corrupt and dysfunctional, with many country’s bureaucrats spending too much of their energy fighting one another over money and power. And Russia’s future after Mr. Putin — whenever that may come — is anybody’s guess.