Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 11/5/2007
Russia's Quest for Strategic Identity
November 2006
Abstract
May 2004 saw the kick-off of our Occasional Paper Series under the title “Poutine et le renouveau autocratique”. Written by Dr Lionel Ponsard, at the time research adviser at the NDC, Occasional Paper 1 put some question marks at the sustainability of the democratic attainments of perestroika as embodied in the Russian Constitution of 1993, particularly in view of the wide discretionary powers vested in the president. Further analyzing president Putin’s performance on his electoral promise to reinstate the Russian Federation as a first class power on the international scene, he concluded that the future of democratic values in the country was uncertain, and that Russia was diverging from Europe.
