Choose an empirical case and apply a theory or framework to explain what happened/is happening. Make an argument for your preferred theory or framework. Explain how you will know the theory works.

Understanding Putinism, and Its Future.”

For this assignment you will choose an empirical case and apply a theory or framework to explain what happened/is happening. In the first part of the assignment you will summarize what is happening. In the second you will make an argument for your preferred theory or framework. The key here will be to explain how you will know the theory works. For example, if you wanted to explain the current stand-off over Ukraine in realist terms, you would have to set up a set of questions that would tie how that stand-off has developed to particular tenets of realist theory.