This book analyses the recent and on-going regime changes, their internal causes and the external factors that either stimulate or obstruct political reforms. Comparing today's political reforms with the evolution of the political systems in the Western world, and especially with the sequencing of and congruence between the development of civil institutions and economic and political systems then and there, permits to reveal serious problems with the current attempts at regime change. A comparison of the processes started by Gorbachev in Russia and the Chinese reforms initiated by Deng...