This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Building on earlier work, this text combines theoretica

Why has democracy failed to take root in Russia? After shedding the shackles of Soviet rule, some countries in the postcommunist region undertook lasting democr

Russia today represents one of the major examples of the phenomenon of "electoral authoritarianism" which is characterized by adopting the trappings of democrat

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

In recent decades, the regions of Russia have taken different paths of regime transition. Despite the consolidation of an autocratic regime at national level an