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In the period 2005–2007, Russia’s political regime transformed from what had been sometimes referred to as a ‘managed democracy’ (Balzer 2003), a political regime that restrained the scope of citizens’ political choice by a variety of manipulative means, to a different political order. From a theoretical angle, this transition can be viewed as crossing a threshold between two hybrid political regimes: ‘defective democracy’ and ‘electoral authoritarianism’ (Diamond 2002; Bogaards 2009). Defective democracy, sometimes referred to as electoral democracy when contrasted to full-fledged liberal democracy, does not go beyond the electoral minimum. While being capable of ‘getting elections right’, defective democracy fails to institutionalise other vital dimensions of democratic constitutionalism, such as the rule of law, political accountability, bureaucratic integrity, and public deliberation (Schedler 2002, p. 37). Electoral …