Vladimir Putin’s Russia has two fatal flaws: Its leader is increasingly illegitimate and its borders are artificial.
Legitimacy matters because it endows rulers with the right to exercise authority, as the German sociologist Max Weber wrote. Rulers may, of course, exercise authority by killing or coercing their subjects, but it is much more effective (and cheaper) when people willingly do what a legitimate authority wants them to do.
Artificiality matters because, although all states and nations are human constructs and not naturally or divinely preordained, some states are more artificial — or less “natural” — than others, and thus more prone to the instability that artificiality fosters. Empires, which are ragtag agglomerations of territories and peoples, are one example of exceptionally artificial political systems.
Weber identified three pillars of legitimacy: tradition, rules and procedures, and charisma. Where does Putin stand with respect to them? He used to have all three.
Russians have traditionally accepted autocratic rule. That was as true in the period from 1998 to 1999 when Putin came to power, as it was in 1917 to 1918 when another Vladimir, Lenin, seized what was left of the imperial state.
As to the other two sources of legitimacy, at least initially, Putin was elected in more or less fair and free elections. And for several years, he exuded a youthful, hypermasculine vigor a la Mussolini that bordered on and perhaps even was charismatic.
Within the last 10 to 15 years, things changed radically. Most Russians continue to have a love affair with dictatorship, but young, educated, urban Russians appear to be developing a capacity to think critically about power and authority, especially as they are being killed and wounded in the war with Ukraine.
Russia hasn’t seen genuine elections for years, and the visibly aging and increasingly plump Putin can no longer pretend to be the embodiment of the nation. He has tried to substitute infallibility for vigor, but, after he stupidly invaded Ukraine, that has become a tougher sell.
In sum, Putin’s legitimacy has undergone a crash dive. Unsurprisingly, he is now doing what all illegitimate rulers do — killing his opponents and coercing his subjects. The North Korean counterexample notwithstanding, leaders who are too enamored of violence usually have short careers. Putin’s — over 25 years — has been long enough.
Despite his braggadocio, which many Western analysts take for real, Putin’s authority and power is actually hanging by a thread. If he is overthrown tomorrow, we shouldn’t be too shocked.
Putin’s illegitimacy brings us to Russia’s second fatal flaw: its artificiality. As Russians like to say, Russia has no borders. While that’s usually meant as a justification of expansionism — which it definitely is — it’s also a sad commentary on the “emptiness” of the Russian state.
Russia claims to be a federation, but since the 14th century it has been a perpetually expanding imperial power, and now the geographically largest country in the world. To say Russia could be and has been smaller or larger is another way of saying, "There is no there there.”
Put another way: Where exactly is Russia? Hundreds of years ago, there were only the principalities of Moscow and some adjacent territories. Were they Russia? Well, yes, except that they called themselves Muscovites. Did Russia “expand” when Muscovy conquered Siberia, or were the Siberian peoples exterminated by Muscovites? When Russian rulers seized large parts of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine in the 17th and 18th centuries, thereby expanding their holdings westwards, was this expansion “natural” or was it “artificial?" Ditto for Russia’s expansion into the Caucasus and Central Asia in the 19th century.
Ditto for Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine. Why is it supposedly more natural for Russia to lay claim to Crimea and eastern Ukraine than for the Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, both of whom were displaced from their homelands by ethnic cleansing and genocide?
Russia’s artificiality may have served it well in the 19th century age of empires. But artificiality served it very poorly in the late 20th, when oppressed nations throughout the world challenged its imperial artificiality and insisted on building their own “naturally” bounded states. The years 1989 to 1991 witnessed the Soviet empire’s collapse and replacement with nation-states.
Unless history suddenly changes course, imperial artificiality will also doom modern Russia. A As Putin’s legitimacy weakens, his ability to stem Russia’s decline is evaporating. Russia’s non-Russian peoples will eventually realize they can take advantage of this artificiality and create their own less artificial states.
We don’t know when Russia’s demise will take place. But we can state with reasonable assurance that the longer Russia’s illegitimate ruler hangs on to power, the larger and louder the resulting imperial crash will be.
Putin likes to accuse Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of being the illegitimate ruler of an artificial state. But the Ukrainian president will likely have the last laugh.
Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”
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