International soccer can lead to respect and admiration for all different members of one’s nation and national team. But there are two teams in every match. The other team and the individuals that comprise it are “them,” one’s team is “us.” When a member of the opposition does not match the vision of what “us” looks like, especially when “us” is nearly homogeneous, it is easy to consider him an enemy.
In Russia’s parliamentary elections on December 4, 2011, United Russia – the party of President-turned-Prime Minister-turned-current-President Vladimir Putin – won the majority of seats in the Duma, the Russian Parliament, amid cries (and video evidence) of widespread election fraud.
Currently, the world’s geostrategic center is shifting northward, and few of us are paying attention.
Thursday evening, Professor Mitchell Orenstein of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies presented his paper, “Post-Soviet Authoritarianism: The Influence of Russia in Its Near Abroad”.
As predicted, Vladimir Putin won the March 4 Russian presidential elections with over 60 percent of the vote. What followed were the expected accusations of illegitimacy from members of the opposition.
On Sunday, Russians from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok will vote to decide who will be president for the next six years.
Despite plummeting temperatures and the Prime Minister’s pledge to create a profusion of jobs, thousands of discontented Muscovites continue to gather in the streets surrounding the Kremlin to air their frustrations and, above all else, assert and explore their right to protest.
This month, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev sent a bill to the Duma calling for the reinstatement of direct gubernatorial elections by the people of Russia’s provinces.
Post-Cold War Russia has never been considered a paragon of democracy or political freedom. From bloody suppression in Chechnya to the ultra-rich oligarchs that make the economy spin, aspects of Russia and its government have always raised eyebrows in the international community. Yet even so, the Russian government – up to this point — has made a decent effort in feigning [...]
The pose is almost menacing. Two penetrating, steel-blue eyes gaze downward at the viewer, the mouth calm but clenched. Russian president Vladimir Putin, Time’s 2007 Person of the Year, projects a threatening image in the magazine’s cover shot. The same could be said about Russia’s current image in the West.
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