Kevin,
I am not Chris, but I have an opinion. Prof Nancy Ries’ analysis strikes me as a combination of naiveté and the usual conventional wisdom on Russia found in the mainstream press.
Without reading the entire text of Ries’ comments, I would agree with her that Russia has a “presidential monarchy”, though my sense of the term is in complete juxtaposition to her usage. The recent Yukos affair has shown Putin to be not much more than a figure- head attempting to appease political and monied interests surrounding him without much success.
Ries’ fundamental mistake is the assumption the Russia’s Duma or the very idea of democracy has any meaning in Russia. In this respect, she only projects a western assumption about what Russia is and should become.
This person “educates” America’s youth (sic)?
Peter
--------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20030915/55bd280a/attachment.htm>