Michael A. McFaul - First, the collapse of the old regime left a vacuum of state power. The anarchy, looting and interruption of state services that we see in Iraq are predictable consequences of regime change. Second, after the fall of the dictator, expectations about "life after the dictator" exploded. People who have been oppressed for decades want to benefit from the new order immediately. The urgent and angry questions last week from Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi National Congress leader now back in Iraq, about why the Americans have not provided more relief faster is typical. The first leaders after the departure of the king in France, the czar in Russia or the communists in Eastern Europe knew Chalabi's situation well. Paradoxically, society's expectations inflate at precisely the same moment when the state is least prepared to meet them. Third, the coalition that opposed the dictatorship dissolved. While the dictator was still in power, this united front embraced one ideology of opposition -- "anti-king," "anti-czar," "anti-shah" or "anti- communist." In doing so, these coalitions consisted of economic, political, ethnic and religious forces with radically different visions for their country after regime change. Unity ended after the dictator fell. In Russia, Bolsheviks and liberals in 1917 and nationalists and democrats in 1991 went their separate ways. In Iran in 1979, Islamic leftists, liberals and militant clerics celebrated their shared goal of removing the shah. Just a few years after the collapse of the old order, many of the coalition partners who brought down the shah were out of power or in jail. Soon after the Soviet puppet regime in Afghanistan fell, the anti-Soviet coalition forces were killing each other.

Michael A. McFaul, et al - At a time when relations between the United States and some of its traditional allies are strained, President Bush must be looking forward to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin's visit this week. The two men seem to have genuine rapport, and although Putin did not endorse the U.S. decision to invade Iraq, he does speak from Bush's script on the global war on terrorism. Bush also knows that Russia is in a position to offer real help in tackling critical security threats to the United States. The president hopes to secure commitments from Putin for Russian troops in Iraq and for cooperation in attempts to slow Iran's development of nuclear weapons and for help in defusing the standoff with North Korea.

Michael A. McFaul - In a recent speech to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the National Endowment of Democracy (NED), President George W. Bush made a compelling case for the United States continuing to engage in promoting democracy worldwide. In a speech of strategic vision that both Ronald Reagan and Woodrow Wilson would have been proud to deliver, Bush stated that "the advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country." He asserted that "liberty is the design of nature; we believe that liberty is the direction of history... and freedom--the freedom we prize--is not for us alone, it is the right and capacity of all mankind."

Michael A. McFaul - The results of the parliamentary vote on 7 December suggest that Russia has entered a new political era. For the first decade of post-communist politics in Russia, the central cleavage was between left and right, communist and anticommunist, or "reformers" and non-reformers. The central issue was the economy and policies to reform it. The vote tally from the election suggests that a third parameter -- nationalism -- has overtaken these earlier divides and debates. The long-term consequences could be terrifying.

Michael A. McFaul - The results of the parliamentary vote last Sunday suggest that Russia has entered new political era. For the first decade of post-communist politics in Russia, the central cleavage was between left and right, communist and anti-communist, or ''reformers'' and non-reformers.

Michael A. McFaul - On election night in Moscow fours years ago, Russia's liberals drank to celebrate their unexpected electoral victory in the 1999 parliamentary vote. Optimists predicted a resurgence of liberalism as economic prosperity continued to build a middle-class constituency for liberal ideas. That evening leaders of the liberal coalition, Union of Right Forces (SPS is the Russian acronym), even talked about a real run for the Kremlin by one of their own in 2008. The prospect that Anatoly Chubais, Russia's privatization czar turned CEO of Russia's electricity monopoly, might end up president did not sound fanciful. But last week, instead of toasting their momentum, members of the SPS drank to numb the bitterness of a resounding defeat. The xenophobic demagogue Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) doubled its share of the vote since the last Duma election four years ago, while a new nationalist coalition, Motherland (Rodina), came from nowhere to win 9 percent of the popular vote. The 50 or so seats previously held by liberals in Russia's parliament will now be occupied by these nationalists.

Michael A. McFaul - The debate about the future of Russian democracy in the United States has been ongoing for several years. However, the accumulation of democratic setbacks over the past three years, the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in October and an electoral process assessed as being "not fair" by the OSCE in December have elevated the debate to the level of policymakers within the Bush administration.

As a visiting scholar at Moscow State University in the fall of 1990, Michael A. McFaul collaborated with three other academics then based at the university -- Steve Fish, Sergei Markov and Nikolai Zlobin -- to start a Russian-American discussion group on democratic politics. In various forms, our tusovka continued to meet for the next decade. Many of the participants in this discussion group are the central characters in Andrew Wilson's important new book, "Virtual Politics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World."