After Chechnya, many analysts predicted that Russia's flirtation with democracy was over. However, the process leading up to the parliamentary vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's government last week suggests that the future of Russia's fragile democracy may not be so bleak. In fact, the so-called governmental crisis of the last two weeks has demonstrated that respect for the democratic process by Russian politicians is greater now than perhaps at any time in Russian history.

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On December 10, 1994, Russian president Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian armed forces into the Republic of Chechnya. For eight weeks thereafter, the Russian military waged a poorly organized but brutally destructive assault on the Chechen capital of Grozny.

Starting in the winter of 1991, the project on Industrial Restructuring and the Political

Economy in Russia at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms

Control (CISAC) has provided technical assistance to Mashinostroenie, a large aerospace enterprise engaged in research, design, experimental production, and systems integration of a broad variety of space vehicles and equipment. Officially known as NPO Mashinostroenie, the firm is one of the most prestigious enterprises in the Russian military-industrial complex, with world-class, state-of-the-art technology. The enterprise brings together many of the country's best scientists and engineers, along with management systems to execute their ideas.

Since 1992, the CISAC Defense Conversion Project has been working with the Moscowbased Impuls. Impuls is a medium-sized firm with expertise in control microdevices for the military, such as control heads for guided bombs and detection equipment for various weapon systems. Currently Impuls is working aggressively to break into several commercial high-technology markets.

Given the privileged position of the military-industrial complex in the old Soviet order, many have asserted that the military-industrial complex would be most resistant to radical economic reform. As the coddled employees of the Soviet state, we should expect directors and workers of military enterprises as well as their ministerial superiors to fear liberalized prices, commercial markets, and privatization.

Presidential Decree No. 1400 issued September 23, 1993, fundamentally altered the course of Russia's political transition. Debilitating polarization during the two years before between President Boris Yeltsin's government and parliament had resulted in the virtual collapse of the Russian state. As Yeltsin explained when he announced the decree: "All political institutions and politicians have been involved in a futile and senseless struggle aimed at destruction. A direct effect of this is the loss of authority of state power as a whole..."

The Russian privatization program has been heralded as the crown jewel of Russia's economic reform. While other aspects of Russia's economic reform have been less successful, privatization has continued unimpeded throughout the first two years of economic reform. On paper, Russian privatization appears to be more successful than any other government privatization program in history. By January 1994, 90,000 state enterprises were privatized.

International regimes are systems of norms and rules agreed upon by states to govern their behaviour in specific political contexts or `issue areas' whether this be trade policy, proliferation of nuclear weapons, or the control of transboundary air pollution in some region of the world.

In a competitive international society increasingly faced with issues that transcend the physical and political limits of individual states they are an outstanding example of international governance, and central to any analysis of world politics.

In this volume, experts from the USA and Europe join forces for the first time for a rigorous exploration of the concept of international regimes. They discuss the fundamental conceptual and theoretical problems of regime analysis, study how regimes are formed and how they change, examine approaches to explaining the success or failure of attempts to form regimes, and look at the consequences of regimes for international relations.

As Japan's newfound economic power leads to increased political power, there is concern that Japan may be turning East Asia into a regional economic bloc to rival the U.S. and Europe. In Regionalism and Rivalry, leading economists and political scientists address this concern by looking at three central questions: Is Japan forming a trading bloc in Pacific Asia? Does Japan use foreign direct investment in Southeast Asia to achieve national goals? Does Japan possess the leadership qualities necessary for a nation assuming greater political responsibility in international affairs?

The authors contend that although intraregional trade in East Asia is growing rapidly, a trade bloc is not necessarily forming. They show that the trade increase can be explained entirely by factors independent of discriminatory trading arrangements, such as the rapid growth of East Asian economies. Other chapters look in detail at cases of Japanese direct investment in Southeast Asia and find little evidence of attempts by Japan to use the power of its multinational corporations for political purposes. A third group of papers attempt to gauge Japan's leadership characteristics. They focus on Japan's "technology ideology," its contributions to international public goods, international monetary cooperation, and economic liberalization in East Asia.

In response to scores of requests, this textbook edition of Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries has been abridged to convey the core arguments of the book in a format appropriate for classroom use.

The authors explore the complex and reciprocal interactions between a society's dominant beliefs, values, and attitudes about politics and the nature of its political system. Among the issues they address are: to what extent is political culture cause or effect; how can its causal importance for democracy be weighed; what are the most important elements of a democratic political culture; and how are these elements developed over time?

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