Making and Breaking Democratic Transitions is required reading for anyone interested in understanding Russia's protracted transition from communist rule. Most importantly, the book deploys the comparative method to discuss the often-neglected regional dimensions of transition. The regional focus makes important insights about transitions in large states that contributes to our more general understanding of democratization beyond the Russian case. It is a serious book by a superb collection of authors that mixes interesting theory and original empirical research.

- Michael McFaul, Stanford University,

Vladimir Gel’man and his colleagues add enormous depth to our picture of Russia’s troubled transition by systematically comparing dynamics and results across the regions of the country. This study tells us all more, not only about the Russian experience, but about regime change in the contemporary world.

- Timothy J. Colton, Harvard University,

Making and Breaking Democratic Transitions marks a major contribution to the literature on comparative politics from the younger generation of Russian political scientists. An authoritative analysis of developments in Russia’s regions is placed within a refreshingly intelligent new model of regime change. Not only is this a pathbreaking book in the study of post-Communist regimes, and of Russia in particular, but it will interest anyone thinking and writing about transitions—of all kinds.

- Mary McAuley, author of <I>Russia's Politics of Uncertainty<I>,

Gel'man tweaks the existing theories to bring them into better line with Russian reality and provides a useful framework for telling the story of political change during the last 15 years. The case studies are the most coherent histories of the regions that have come along yet.

- Robert Orttung, American University,

Provides a broadly-structured assessment of the politics of regional regime transformation.

- Derek S. Hutcheson, Europe-Asia Studies

An essential text that aids our understanding both of politics in Russia and the nature of political transitions in general.

Slavonic & East European Review

Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and academics will find this to be an essential text that aids our understanding both of politics in Russia and the nature of political transitions in general.

Karl Cordell, University Of Plymoth

This volume illustrates how the collapse of Soviet communism has unevenly affected the political and social dynamics of six Russian Oblasts (Saratov, Nizhnii Novgorod; Volgograd, Ryazan', Ul'yanovsk, and Tver') and more importantly, how the elite class of each region has managed to deal with (or take advantage of) unique structural conditions and variants of a Soviet legacy. This book effectively mixes normative assertions with concrete examples to reveal just how complicated the world of post-authoritarian politics is. Gel'man Ryzhenkov and Brie's normatively driven analysis of the Russian transition has wider application as it raises important questions about the hueristic value of the transition paradigm.

- Neil A. Cruickshank, University of Saint Andrews, Political Studies Review