Synopsis
For hundreds of years, dictators have ruled Russia. Do they still? In the late 1980s, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev launched a series of political reforms that eventually allowed for competitive elections, the emergence of an independent press, the formation of political parties, and the sprouting of civil society. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, these proto-democratic institutions endured in an independent Russia. But did the processes unleashed by Gorbachev and continued under Russian President Boris Yeltsin lead eventually to liberal democracy in Russia? If not, what kind of political regime did take hold in post-Soviet Russia? And how has Vladimir Putin s rise to power influenced the course of democratic consolidation or the lack thereof? Between Dictatorship and Democracy seeks to give a comprehensive answer to these fundamental questions about the nature of Russian politics.
Author Description:
Michael McFaul is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also an Associate Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a nonresident Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. McFaul is also a Research Associate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and the Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, both at Stanford.
Nikolai Petrov is head of the Center for Political Geographic Research and is a leading research associate with the Institute of Geography at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The New York Times - Richard Pipes
The discussion throughout is well informed and judicious. If the conclusions are not more clear cut, it is because the situation of contemporary Russia itself is contradictory and inconclusive.