From Managed Democracy to Sovereign Democracy

The first year of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s second term has been disastrous. A series of crises has occurred, from the assassination of Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov in Grozny in May 2004, to the widespread demonstrations against the government’s seriously flawed attempt to replace social and other benefits with cash payments. Fighters staged raids in Grozny and Ingushetia, the government provoked a minor banking crisis, the Kremlin suffered humiliation and failure in its attempts to influence elections in Abkhazia and Ukraine, and a battle has raged inside the Kremlin for control of Yukos. All these have demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the managed democracy (MD) regime construct.