After the collapse of the Soviet Union Russia under Yeltsin and Putin implemented a political
system of imitation democracy marked by a huge disparity between formal constitutional
principles and the reality of authoritarian rule. How did this system take shape how else
might it have developed and what are the prospects for re-envisioning it more democratically
in the future? These questions animate Dmitrii Furman's Imitation Democracy a welcome antidote
to books that blandly decry Putin as an omnipotent dictator without considering his platforms
constituencies and sources of power. With extensive public opinion polling drawn from
throughout the late- and post-Soviet period and a thorough knowledge of both official and
unofficial histories Furman offers a definitive account of the formation of the modern Russian
political system casting it into powerful relief through comparisons with other post-Soviet
states. Peopled with grey technocrats warring oligarchs patriots and provocateurs Furman's
narrative details the struggles among partisan factions and the waves of public sentiment
that shaped modern Russia's political landscape culminating in Putin's third presidential term
which resolves the contradiction between the form and content of imitation democracy the
formal dependence of power on elections and the actual dependence of elections on power.
