After decades of rule under and the fall of the Soviet Union the Russian people gave liberal democracy a try but after a short boom followed by a hard fall they looked for a new form of government. Under the Presidency of Vladimir Putin Russia moved toward a new system of electoral authoritarianism. This new style of government was more a combination of democracy and hard authoritarianism. Like all systems electoral authoritarianism has its strengths and it has its weaknesses. One thing that shows the strength of electoral authoritarianism is the vertical power structure. Under this structure all power is directed under the Kremlin. This benefits the Krem lin and Putin greatly as all political power and resources are redirected toward those in power. “ Cooptation Of subnational “political machines” controlled by regional and local chief executives into a nationwide “echelon” controlled by the Kremlin” (G 84) After Putin took over he decided that he needed to consolidate power with the Kremlin as the sole source of power. To do this he got rid of regional governors and put in governors appointed by him instead. This secures power for the Kremlin By making them the sole legitimate source of power. This…show more content… By controlling the media the leaders can keep what information that the populace can and can’t see. In Russia this is also true. News agencies like Russia Today and Sputnik are majority owned by the government and release pro-Putin and pro-nationalist articles and stories and stories that are anti-western. The government controls these news agencies through completely legal means. These involve majority ownership of the companies, calling out of loans taken out from the government by the companies, and using the tax code to find violations the company made. This allows the government to punish news agencies for writing stories against the