This book investigates the impact that Western democracy assistance programs have had on the development of women's and soldiers' rights NGOs in Russia in the post-Soviet period. The author examines Western assistance programs and NGO sectors in seven Russian regions, and finds that the norms that Western donors promote in their civil society programs, as well as the positive or negative local political environment in each city, have a dramatic influence on the extent to which the interactions between foreign donors and NGOs contribute to developing an NGO sector that is supportive of democracy.

This is the first book to systematically analyze these interactions across numerous regions and across two different NGO issue sectors, and it produces important new conclusions about how different domestic political contexts and normative values shape the effectiveness of Western aid.