Adam Przeworski is the Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Politics at New York University. He previously taught at the University of Chicago, where he was the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor. Przeworski is the recipient of the 1985 Socialist Review Book Award, the 1998 Gregory M. Luebbert Article Award, the 2001 Woodrow Wilson Prize, the 2010 Lawrence Longley Award, and the 2010 Johan Skytte Prize. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1991.

'Reading Democracy in a Russian Mirror is like listening in on a salon with a dozen or so distinguished thinkers from Russia and the West as they explore the implications of Russia's post-communist evolution for democratic theory. Although a common thread runs through the conversation - whether democracy presupposes a competent state - the contributors sometimes branch off to address related questions: How democratic in fact are Western democracies? Are Western concepts of democracy universal? Has Putin in fact strengthened Russian statehood? The volume is testimony to the difficulty, and necessity, of finding a common language to discuss the meaning of democracy.' Thomas F. Remington, Emory University, Atlanta

• Introduction; Part I. Russia: 1. Peculiarities of Russian politics Andranik Migranyan; 2. Imitating democracy, imitating authoritarianism Stephen Holmes; 3. Russian perspectives on democracy, political emancipation, and integrity Mikhail Ilyin; 4. Color revolutions and Russia Valery Solovei; Part II. Democracy in a Russian Mirror: 5. Judging democracy as form of government for given territories: utopia or apologetics? John Dunn; 6. Democracy: ancient and modern, good and bad Pasquale Pasquino; 7. The role of elections in democracy Boris Makarenko; 8. Elections and the challenge of more democracy José María Maravall; 9. Democracy between elections Ian Shapiro; 10. General settings, regional/national factors and the concept of non-western democracy Alexei D. Voskressenski; 11. 'Non-western democracy' in the West Adam Przeworski; Part III. Paths of Political Change: 12. Instituting political change John Ferejohn; 13. Political institution and political order(s) Adam Przeworski; 14. How do transitions to democracy get stuck and where? Boris Makarenko and Andrei Melville; Afterword: open issues and disagreements.