Inside Russian Politics

by Edwin Bacon

Inside Russian Politics is an intelligent, critical and engaging account of the realities of contemporary Russian politics. It is distinctive in widening our view of Russia beyond the standard account of global power plays and resurgent authoritarian menace. Putin matters, but he is not Russia. Russian military adventurism has had a major effect on contemporary international affairs, but assessing its aims and projecting future intentions and impacts requires analysis within a context deeper than the stock ‘Cold War renewed’ story.

The holistic approach of this book facilitates our understanding of power politics in and beyond the Kremlin and of Russian policy on the international stage. Revealing the Russia beyond Moscow and the central figures around Putin, Edwin Bacon focuses on Russia’s political present, not to ignore the past but to move beyond cliché and misleading historical analogy to reveal the contemporary – and future – concerns of Russia’s current generation of politicians.

Genres: Russia, Nonfiction

150 pages, Paperback

Published April 24, 2018

Reviews

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. It provides a strong basis for understanding Russian politics, including below-the-surface regional politics. But it somewhat seems to neglect the political economy and 1990s history of Russia - which is a shame. Perhaps I wanted it to cover too much.

Particular strengths of the book are the chapters covering public opinion polls, the 'dual Russian state' of a demagogue operating within a constitutional and institutional liberal democracy and the examination of regional politics, which gives us insight into the potential next leader after Putin. These chapters are clear, compelling, and well put together. Combined with sections on Russia in the world and the politics of Russian opposition forces - which are solid sections though feel somewhat facile - I found this to be an enjoyable read.

But where I thought the book could be better was its treatment of history and 'Russian civilisation'. For the former, I contrast the book with Tony Wood's 'Russia Without Putin'. That book has much stronger coverage of the economics of Russia and its elite politics, which Wood persuasively argues are inextricably tied to the history of Russian in the 1990s. In contrast to this book, Wood has a much better look at the first and second wave of oligarch dynamics that appear to drive much of the elite bargaining today. And where Bacon's book covers the 1990s briefly, the treatment by Wood is more detailed. The period covered in this book is different. This book covers Putin's time - Russia in the 2000s.

I also found the chapter on Russian civilisation also to be somewhat confused. I had expected perhaps some sort of demographic or cultural analysis - instead the section feels a bit loose, with some observations about the education system, the construction of Russia's geopolitical identity and tools of Russian propaganda. Some of the benefit of the doubt that the author affords the Russian Government around election interference in the 2016 US elections also feel like they haven't stood the test of time.

I enjoyed this book and would read it again. But don't make it the only book you read about Russian politics!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book offers insights on the Russian psyche that aren’t easily concluded by reading news articles, etc. I walked away understanding their political structure a bit better but the chapters felt a little repetitive. I also found it odd that there was no mention of the oligarchs in Russia or Russia’s private military company. The EEU was discussed briefly but CSTO wasn’t really mentioned. Wish the author would have gone a little deeper.

[Adriano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure what to make of this one. I picked it up and was really looking forward to reading it, but it never really grabbed hold of me at any point.

The writing and the content failed to really engage me as a reader, and for the most part I didn't feel like I was getting either the deep or alternative insight that I was expecting. Quite the opposite really, aside from a few publicly available polls, the analysis was pretty thin and superficial. The best way to describe it would be to say that it came across as a mixture of newspaper/blog articles thrown together alongside the musings of the author.

I know more now than I did before, so that is something I guess, but I'm not convinced that it would have been any more than I would have learnt from searching the likes of the Economist and the Financial Times for articles.

[Raphael Briand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear and interesting, a great overview

[Emmanuel Rodríguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Russian politician and Orthodox Church work together in order to achieve goals for the people.

[Harry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent primer for recent Russian history!

[sabina · Rating 2 out of 5]

although it may be a good starting point for someone who knows virtually nothing about russian politics, i found the book to be very shallow in its analysis, and not descriptive or informative enough in providing the country’s political history. although the author acknowledges that they purposefully omitted citations, i did not like it, as it made fact-checking and further research difficult, and is poor academic practice, especially given that this book stressed its objective point of view.

whilst i would not necessarily recommend this book for someone who would like to learn about russian politics, i wouldn’t tell someone not to read it, especially as it doesn’t contain any explicit bias and was easy to read.

actual rating - 2.5/5 stars