congratulations on the book timothy frye. from my point of view as an obligated reader there are far too many books on russia but we have far too few good looks on russia and her fester fries book call -- falls into the latter category which makes it a pleasurable experience. a long time ago in the late 80s and early 90s the russians were saying that they wanted to be a normal country and this was true of the vast majority people even in the provinces who were far away like myself. professor frye's argument is that russia is a marmol country. it has become a normal country. it is a normal autocracy but it is normal. putin kills journalists and autocracies killed journalists. that's what attackers to do. they emasculate limits on executive power. this regime is corrupt yeah well all personal autocracies are corrupt so we are dealing with another normal country. it's not a normal country in the way that folks in the late 80s and 90s were hoping. they were looking for a normal country in the western european social democratic we

. >> it gives me a pleasure to introduce today's panel where we will be discussing timothy frye latestak strongman: the limits of power in putin's russia." tim is a different and colleague going back to the days when he was a graduate student at columbia when i first started as an assistant professor, so which really terrific and an honor for me to moderate this panel. kim continues to bes on the forefront of scholarship

join >> get gives me immense pleasure to introduce today's panel where we will be discussing timothy frye's most recent book "weak strongman" the limits of power in putin's russia. tim is a deer friend and colleague going back to the days of being a graduate student at columbia when i first started as a professor so it's really terrific and an honor for me to moderate this panel. tim continues to be at the forefront of scholarships on