Towards a Post-Putin Russia

In March 2008, President Vladimir Putin’s current term in office is due to expire. Ever since Putin was re-elected in 2004, Russian and international media have been rife with speculations about the outcome of the ‘2008 problem’: Will Putin relinquish power? And if so, who will succeed him? Every promotion and dismissal of top executives over the past few years has sparked new waves of speculation about which of the loose interest groups or clans of the president’s inner circle is now in ascent and thus likely to produce the heir. Speculating about names at this stage, however, cannot be anything more than more or less educated guesswork. When organizing the conference ‘Towards a Post-Putin Russia’ at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs in December 2005, we wished to move beyond discussions on who might be at the helm after 2008 and focus instead on some fundamental trends likely to influence the new presidency. To this end, we invited five leading international experts on Russian politics and challenged them to reflect on what impact current trends in democratic development, elite competition, centre–periphery relations, economic growth and international relations might have on the post-Putin presidency. This volume presents their views on these important subjects.