Nation Building in the Former USSR

Although his methods are hardly democratic, Putin’s efforts to strengthen the Russian state may help democracy in the long term.

Russia has witnessed a growing rapprochement between some of its nationalists and some of its democrats, but this trend is threatened by divisions over the annexation of Crimea.

“The pursuit of national glory,” which M. Steven Fish counts among the features of Vladimir Putin’s “populism,” is emerging as central to the regime’s legitimation. Unlike previous instances of patriotic…