The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair

podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair.

That's patreon.com slash LawFair.

Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair

no bull and the aftermath.

And what the book does is it walks through a whole host of trade-offs that Putin has to

make.

For example, on elections, the trick is to cheat on elections enough so that you're guaranteed

to win, but not so much that you signal weakness.

To use anti-westernism to rile the base, but not so much that you actually provoke war.

To manipulate the news, but not so much that people distrust the media.

To repress political opponents, but not so much that there's a popular backlash.

To keep the security services strong, but not so strong that they can turn on you.

So rather than viewing Putin as omnipotent, which I think a lot of the discourse in the

US about Putin implicitly makes this assumption.

I think my work highlights the way that Putin faces a host of difficult trade-offs that

are common to personalists autocrats.

I'm Dominic Cruz Bustios, and this is the LawFair podcast, November 29, 2021.

I sat down with Timothy Fry, the Marshall D. Schollman professor of post-soviet foreign

policy within the Department of Political Science at Columbia University, editor of post-soviet

affairs and co-director of the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development

at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

...