Russia is no longer the Soviet Union. But it still accounts for a seventh of the world's land surface, stretching across two continents and eleven different time zones. It was a founding member of the United Nations and holds one of the permanent seats on its Security Council. It has one of the world's largest and most technically advanced concentrations of military might. It is also one of the world's biggest economies, with accumulations of natural resources that are among the largest in the world and a vital component of the energy balance of many European and more distant countries. How Russia is governed is accordingly a matter of direct concern to the whole world, and not just to Russians themselves.

An earlier version of this study focused on ‘Russia's new politics’ at a time when it was still conventional to speak of a more general ‘transition to democracy’. The focus of this new and very different book is the Putinist system that came into existence in the early years of the new century, amid a widespread acceptance that early and more optimistic forecasts of Russia's political direction had been mistaken or at least premature. But it is, I hope, much more than a study of the institutions of government that became established during these years: because the process of government can scarcely be understood without an examination of the changes that have been taking place in a much more divided society, in an economy that has been moving from state ownership to a more complex hybrid, and in Russia's relations with the rest of the world community.