Situating Putin

This is a rather old-fashioned book of essays. Its sole objective is to describe the character of Putin's political order as accurately as possible, and to spell out why and how Putinism is worrisome. The main essay evaluates Putinism in terms of notions like gangster state, petrostate, and neo-czarism. It concludes that Putinism, in essence, is about as close to fascist as a system can be without being expressly fascist. The fascist pulse could turn dangerous--a problem mainly for western Europe, which has had trouble coming to terms with the situation..