Over the more than two decades that Putin has ruled Russia he has cultivated the image of an omnipotent ruler, in total command of Russia’s political and economic landscape. This image has been adopted by many observers in the West with insufficient scepticism and interrogation. Timothy Frye seeks to challenge this view in his new book “Weak Strongman:The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia”, which will be the subject of his talk.
Professor Timothy Frye is the Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy at Columbia University. He also serves as editor of Post-Soviet Affairs and co-director of the International Centre for the Study of Institutions and Development at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. He is the author of four books, most recently Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia (2021). Professor Frye holds both a doctorate in political science and an international affairs master’s degree from Columbia as well as a BA in Russian language and literature from Middlebury College.