Atlas / Organisations / Putinism
Putinism
United Russia, sovereign democracy · 2000– · Russia · National Authoritarian · Held state power · coding confidence high
Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →
Core principles
A strong personalised state restoring great-power status, with traditional values against a decadent West.
Economic model
State-dominated energy and banking, oligarchic private ownership contingent on loyalty, market prices, low flat taxes.
Organisation of powers
Elections held without genuine competition, opposition figures imprisoned or dead, press and courts controlled, no term constraint.
Reading note
Economically to the right of most European social democracies while institutionally at the far end of the authority axis. The two facts are unrelated, and both are true.
Check a claim about Putinism. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.
Open in the atlasThe evidence for every score
All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.
EC · Economic organisation · scored +03
Coded right of centre: flat taxation and private ownership, contingent on political loyalty.
- Documented act or statuteA thirteen percent flat personal income tax was introduced in 2001.
- Documented act or statuteThe Yukos case in 2003–04 established that private ownership is revocable for political reasons.
CU · Social and cultural order · scored +09
Coded +9: traditional values written into the constitution and enforced by criminal law.
- Documented act or statuteThe 2020 amendments defined marriage as a union of a man and a woman and invoked faith in God and historical truth.
- Documented act or statuteThe 'international LGBT movement' was designated extremist by the supreme court in 2023.
AU · Organisation of power · scored +10
At the ceiling. Term limits reset, opposition candidates barred, imprisoned or dead.
- Documented act or statuteThe 2020 constitutional amendments reset the presidential term count to zero.
- Documented act or statuteIndependent media were designated foreign agents or closed; the last major independent broadcaster closed in 2022.
SC · Scale of decision · scored +09
Coded +9: elected governors replaced by appointment, and the federal structure hollowed out.
- Documented act or statuteDirect gubernatorial elections were abolished in 2004 and restored in constrained form in 2012.
ID · Rule of membership · scored +08
Coded +8 on the ethnic-civilisational definition of the Russian nation and of its claimed sphere.
- Documented act or statuteCitizenship extended in occupied Ukrainian territories; the compatriots doctrine defines belonging by language and descent.
CH · Method and tempo · scored −03
Coded negative domestically: the regime is the established order and its change is conservative.
- Documented act or statuteConstitutional amendment by managed plebiscite rather than by rupture.
Nearest organisations by measured distance
Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.
- Mobutism1.7
- Estado Novo3.6
- Central Asian Presidentialism3.7
- AKP4.2
- Egyptian Military Republic4.4
- Bharatiya Janata Party4.8
Countries
Cite this page
Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.
Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.