General Editor's Introduction List of Contributors Introduction; Graeme Gill If Checks Won't Balance: Parliamentary Review of Ministerial Appointments; Martha Merritt Presidential Prefects in the Russian Provinces: Yeltsin's Regional Cadres Policy; William A. Clark Post-Soviet Clientelist Norms at the Russian Federal Level; John P. Willerton From Power to Property: The Nomenklatura in Post-Communist Russia; Olga Kryshtanovskaya and Stephen White Elites, institutions and Democratisation in Russia and Eastern Europe; Judith Kullberg, John Higley and Jan Pakulski Elites and the Russian Transition; Graeme Gill Russia as a Post-Communist Country; Leslie Holmes Index

The fall of the Communist regime in the USSR and Russia's search for a democratic and prosperous market-based future is one of the most compelling episodes of the end of the twentieth century. A central part in this drama is being played by political elites. These essays, written by some of the leading scholars in the field, analyse various aspects of the role being played by elites and leaders in Russian politics. Among the issues dealt with are: the origins of the Russian elites, including the issue of continuity with the Soviet past; the relationship between political and economic elites; the means taken by elites to structure politics and their relations; the dynamic of elite politics, and the nature of post-communism. These essays deal with many of the crucial questions facing Russia today.

WILLIAM A. CLARK Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA
GRAEME GILL University of Sydney, Australia
JOHN HIGLEY University of Texas, Austin, USA
LESLIE HOLMES University of Melbourne, Australia
OLGA KRYSHTANOVSKAYA Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
JUDITH KULLBERG Ohio State University, Columbus, USA
MARTHA MERRITT Notre Dame University, Indiana, USA
JAN PAKULSKI University of Tasmania
STEPHEN WHITE University of Glasgow, Scotland
JOHN P. WILLERTON University of Arizona, Tucson, USA