Russia in the Spotlight: G8 scorecard

In 2006 Russia holds the presidency of the G8, a club for the world's richest and market-driven democracies - until Russia joined. This presidency is significant because it raises the question of whether Russia is an open democracy or a freemarket economy at all.

Many of the successes of Vladimir Putin's leadership - tax reform, balanced budgets, sharply reduced international lending and a booming economy - have been overshadowed by state intervention, particularly in the oil and gas sector, and by an authoritarianism that increasingly challenges the founding principles of the G8. Putin's domestic and foreign policies have thrown into doubt both the legitimacy of Russia's membership of the G8 and the future shape of the organisation itself - begging the question, if Russia why not China and India?

'Russia in the Spotlight' will score Russia's G8 presidency against a list of key economic and democratic indicators as well as assessing Russia's performance on its chosen G8 themes: education and energy security. The scorecard will adopt an innovative scoring system that refers to the founding principles of the G8, as set out in the Rambouillet Declaration of 1975, and will be the first in a FPC series evaluating the performance of each G8 country.

Foreign Policy Centre: East or West? Russia's Identity Crisis in Foreign Policy, 2006 http://fpc.org.uk/fsblob/681.pdf

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