It has become conventional wisdom that Russia is in the midst of a well entrenched and lengthy retreat from democracy - a reaction to the turbulence of the 1990s and the hardships of the economic decline that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet public opinion surveys suggest widespread support in Russian society for stronger democratic institutions and dissatisfaction with the degree of democracy provided by Russia's contemporary political institutions. In this volume, Tom Bjorkman argues that the recent pattern of retreat from democratic values reflects the self-interest of a...