Russian Politics offers an up-to-date treatment of Russian politics in the post-Cold War era, drawn from English language and Russian sources. Praised for their clear, jargon-free, and unbiased writing style, the authors have written this book with an undergraduate audience in mind. The authors see great potential in recent political developments in the former Soviet Union, and with this book work to convey the sense of drama embodied in those changes and their impact upon the Russian people. Russian Politics focuses on presenting and analyzing long-term factors, rather than simply recounting transitory events — to make this book as useful tomorrow as it is today.

Russian Politics is both descriptive and analytic. For example, the authors describe just the right amount of historical coverage of the Soviet period (Chs. 1 - 4) to help the reader develop a sense of context for the current Russian political system. And to help students think more analytically, there is a concluding chapter that provides a set of concepts students can use to assess the prospects for democratic change in Russia. Based upon the premise that no theoretical framework can explain the many changes that continue to take place in Russia, the authors instead present multiple causal explanations. As a result, Russian Politics is flexible enough to complement many different approaches to teaching this course.