For hundreds of years, dictators have ruled Russia. Do they still? In the late 1980s, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev launched a series of political reforms that eventually allowed for competitive elections, the emergence of an independent press, the formation of political parties, and the sprouting of civil society. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, these proto-democratic institutions endured in an independent Russia.

But did the processes unleashed by Gorbachev and continued under Russian President Boris Yeltsin lead eventually to liberal democracy in Russia? If not, what kind of political regime did take hold in post-Soviet Russia? And how has Vladimir Putin's rise to power influenced the course of democratic consolidation or the lack thereof? Between Dictatorship and Democracy seeks to give a comprehensive answer to these fundamental questions about the nature of Russian politics.

This book reflects the unique collaboration of Russian and American scholars. Additional contributors include: Viktor Sheinis, Mikhail Krasnov, Vladimir Petukhov, and Elina Treyger.

Robert Dreeben is one of the most widely read and influential sociologists of education of the past half-century and the author of several important books, one of which (the 1968 classic On What Is Learned in School) has recently been republished by Percheron Press.

In this volume inspired by Dreebens work and career, chapters written by Dreebens colleagues, students, and even one of his mentors present the latest academic research on schools and schooling and examine recent and ongoing school reform policies. The contributors address schooling and socialization, school organization and effects, teaching as an occupation, and other areas of sociology of education where Dreebens research has had a profound impact. A concluding chapter by Dreeben discusses the field of sociology of education as a whole.

The concepts in Stability and Change in American Education demonstrate the centrality of Dreebens work in sociology of education and the relevance of his ideas for understanding schools, teaching, and learning in the twenty-first century. The book will serve as a valuable resource for researchers and scholars seeking to understand the processes and problems of teaching and learning. Policymakers and reformers will also find it to be an indispensable aid since it documents some of the possibilities and successes of school reform, while also showing the challengeschallenges all too often unaddressed by overly simplistic reform policies.

Chairman King, Ranking Member Moloney and distinguished members of the committee, my name is Peter Henry Blair. I am Associate Professor of Economics at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. I am also a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and my research is funded by the National Science Foundation's Early CAREER Development Program. I have wirtten extensively on the economic effects of capital account liberalization. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the implications of my research for the financial services component of the recent U.S. trade agreements with Chile and Singapore.

The central question I want to address is: What is being constructed in El Salvador? Is it what I have elsewhere labeled a "hybrid regime?" Is it a democradura, that is, a "hard" democracy, or a dictablanda, a form of "soft" authoritarian rule? Is it, perhaps, a full-blown, consolidated democracy?

How do we characterize the nature of the Salvadoran transition?

The type of transition matters a great deal. This may seem obvious to many people, but it goes against the arguments of some who claim that the type of transition from authoritarian rule has no lasting effects. Some scholars have maintained that it doesn't matter how countries "transition" to another regime type because, after 10 or 15 years, the results tend to be similar. I do not believe this is correct; El Salvador illustrates why.

After the devastation of World War II, Germany and Japan built national capitalist institutions that were remarkably successful in terms of national reconstruction and international competitiveness. Yet both "miracles" have since faltered, allowing U.S. capital and its institutional forms to establish global dominance. National varieties of capitalism are now under intense pressure to converge to the U.S. model. Kozo Yamamura and Wolfgang Streeck have gathered an international group of authors to examine the likelihood of convergence to determine whether the global forces of Anglo-American capitalism will give rise to a single, homogeneous capitalist system. The chapters in this volume approach this question from five directions: international integration, technological innovation, labor relations and production systems, financial regimes and corporate governance, and domestic politics.

In their introduction, Yamamura and Streeck summarize the crises of performance and confidence that have beset German and Japanese capitalism and revived the question of competitive convergence. The editors ask whether the two countries, confronted with the political and economic exigencies of technological revolution and economic internationalization, must abandon their distinctive institutions and the competitive advantages these have yielded in the past, or whether they can adapt and retain such institutions, thereby preserving the social cohesion and economic competitiveness of their societies.

Over the course of the last century, political scientists have been moved by two principal purposes. First, they have sought to understand and explain political phenomena in a way that is both theoretically and empirically grounded. Second, they have analyzed matters of enduring public interest, whether in terms of public policy and political action, fidelity between principle and practice in the organization and conduct of government, or the conditions of freedom, whether of citizens or of states. Many of the central advances made in the field have been prompted by a desire to improve both the quality and our understanding of political life. Nowhere is this tendency more apparent than in research on American politics, a field in which concerns for the public interest have stimulated various important insights.

This volume systematically analyzes the major developments within the broad field of American politics over the past three decades. Each chapter is composed of a core paper that addresses the major puzzles, conversations, and debates that have attended major areas of concern and inquiry within the discipline. These papers examine and evaluate the intellectual evolution and natural history of major areas of political inquiry and chart particularly promising trajectories, puzzles, and concerns for future work. Each core paper is accompanied by a set of shorter commentaries that engage the issues it takes up, thus contributing to an ongoing and lively dialogue among key figures in the field.

Since Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes, political theorists have depicted the state as "sovereign" because it holds preeminent authority over all the denizens belonging to its geographically defined territory. From the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 until the beginning of World War I in 1914, the essential responsiblities ascribcd to the sovereign state were maintaining internal and external security and promoting domestic prosperity. This idea of "the state" in political theory is clearly inadequate to the realities of national governments and international relations at the beginning of the twenty-first century. During the twentieth century, the sovereign state, as a reality and an idea, has been variously challenged from without and within its borders. Where will the state head in the age of globalisation? Can Catholic polilical thinking contribute to an adequate concept of statehood and government? A group of German and American scholars were asked to explore specific ways in which the intellectual traditions of Catholicism might help our effort lo rethink the state. The debate is guided by the conviction that these intellectual resources will prove valuable to political theorists as they work to revise our understanding of the state.

There is a reading of democracy in both these countries that is not optimistic. In a recent assessment of the nature of Brazil's democratic regime, Kurt Weyland characterized Brazil's democracy as "low quality." He bases this characterization on Brazil's gross level of inequality and the incapacity of Brazilian civil society effectively to demand that government redress inequality. He goes on to argue that it is precisely because Brazil's democracy is of "low quality" that it can survive so well.

Russia, once seen as America's greatest adversary, is now viewed by the United States as a potential partner. This book traces the evolution of American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union, and later Russia, during the tumultuous and uncertain period following the end of the cold war. It examines how American policymakers -- particularly in the executive branch -- coped with the opportunities and challenges presented by the new Russia.

Drawing on extensive interviews with senior U.S. and Russian officials, the authors explain George H. W. Bush's response to the dramatic coup of August 1991 and the Soviet breakup several months later, examine Bill Clinton's efforts to assist Russia's transformation and integration, and analyze George W. Bush's policy toward Russia as September 11 and the war in Iraq transformed international politics. Throughout, the book focuses on the benefits and perils of America's efforts to promote democracy and markets in Russia as well as reorient Russia from security threat to security ally.

Understanding how three U.S. administrations dealt with these critical policy questions is vital in assessing not only America's Russia policy, but also efforts that might help to transform and integrate other former adversaries in the future.

James M. Goldgeier is professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. He is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Michael McFaul is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment, the Peter and Helen Bing senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and an associate professor of political science at Stanford University.