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In the past when government popularity sank, Russia drummed up hysterical threats: the anti-gay crusade of 2012, the war on Ukraine. This time is harder. Voters want something the regime is now intrinsically unable to provide: rising prosperity. /1
Putinism can't provide broad prosperity because it's a mafia state, based on corrupt crony control of the economy. Growth driven by rising energy prices is played out. Rising prosperity now requires entrepreneurship, property rights, a good investment climate. /2
But that would mean allowing competition and fair administrative courts. This is impossible. It would mean taking away cronyistic control of the economy from the Kremlin insiders who provide Putin's power base. /3
You cannot create a non-corrupt capitalist economy quickly. Doing so would require Putin to essentially chop off his government's legs. It is hard to see how Russia gets out of this. Then again, "little green men" were beyond our imaginations, so who knows. /end
