Valerie Sperling is an assistant professor of government and international relations at Clark University, and she is an Associate at the Davis centre for Russian Studies, Harvard University.

• Part I The Elite: Ruling in Whose Interests?, 1 The "Use and Abuse" of Russia's Energy Resources: Implications for State-Society Relations, 2 Do the People Rule? The Use of Referenda in Russia, 3 The Divided Russian Elite: How Russia's Transition Produced a Counter-Elite, Part II The State: Weak Institutions and Crumbling Capacity, 4 Is the Russian State Coping with Organized Crime and Corruption?, 5 State Dysfunctionality, Institutional Decay, and the Russian Military, 6 Is the Center Too Weak or Too Strong in the Russian Federation?, 7 Liberal Transformation: Labor and the Russian State, 8 The Executive Deception: Superpresidentialism and the Degradation of Russian Politics, 9 Russian Courts: Enforcing the Rule of Law?, 10 Stability from Without? International Donors and "Good Governance" Strategies in Russia