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The so-called Bulldozer, Rose, Orange, and Tulip Revolutions have reminded us that as repressive as a regime may be, the real power ultimately belongs to the masses, especially when its forces are supported and channelled into non-violent action in pursuit of clear and concrete objectives. This article shows how the first of these events, the "Bulldozer Revolution," unfolded in Serbia resulting in the ouster of the dictator Milošević. The lessons were then absorbed by Georgian activists who were similarly successful in replacing Shevardnadze with Saakashvili. In Ukraine, the election of Kuchma's protégé, Yanukovych, was foiled when the "Orange Revolution" installed Yushchenko instead. The author also chronicles the "Tulip Revolution" of Kyrgyzstan. A notable feature of this paper is that, in addition to analyzing these "successful" revolutions, it also looks at some clearly unsuccessful ones, namely those attempted in Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Belarus. But the current global economic crisis could lead to more political changes in the former Soviet Union, whether in Belarus, the Caucasus, Central Asia, or even Russia itself. The article argues that the "colour revolutions" of 2000-2005 present a real danger to the authoritarian regime of Medvedev-Putin in Russia, and that their fear of them is hence thoroughly justified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Russian Constitution was adopted in 1993, many citizens have submitted complaints of perceived violations of their constitutional rights to the Russian Constitutional Court. The study analyzes final Court decisions on fifty-five complaints initiated by Russian veterans. Many of these cases related to veterans' access to social welfare benefits; the Court rejected most of the cases. Generally speaking, while veterans argued that they were entitled to particular rights as veterans, the Court denied that veterans deserved special rights that were above and beyond the rights of the individual citizen. However, the Court acknowledged the special status of World War II veterans, on the basis of their extraordinary sacrifices. The decisions show a gap between the veterans' perceptions of their rights and the interpretation of those rights. They also demonstrate that although the Court is formally a body for seeking judicial remedies, it is also a discursive arena in the debate over the Russian state's interpretation of the Soviet past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on the impact of gender on political attitudes has shown that women have more liberal attitudes than men do, both generally and in relation to specific policy areas. One area of an especially large gender gap is in attitudes about foreign policy and the use of force, where women are much less likely to support war and armed conflict. An exception to this gender gap is found in post-communist countries, where men and women often do not display significantly different political attitudes. Employing a variety of survey data on public opinion about the Chechen conflict in Russia, we investigate whether a modern gender gap has emerged in Russia, and the form that this gender gap has taken. We find strong, diverse evidence of a gender gap in Russia, with women expressing more dovish attitudes towards the conflict in Chechnya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses post Communist Russia, with a focus on the transition to democracy, and the framework of transit studies. Topics include the unexpected results of the transition out of Communism, the models of post Communist states in Latin America and Southern Europe as inadequate for describing the changes in Russia, the other countries of the Former Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe; and the search for a framework outside of comparative politics to describe the transition in Russia, and the directions in which Russia is moving.

This article focuses on the Russian Federation's foreign policy vis-à-vis Belarus and Ukraine during the presidencies of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. It addresses the question: Which specific factors influenced Russian foreign policy towards the aforementioned European states? The goals of the study are to illuminate these factors and to compare Russian foreign policy at the time of Yeltsin's administration with that during Putin's presidency. Russo-Ukrainian and Russo-Belarusian relations are analyzed using the method of structured focused comparison. The research examines presidential speeches, decision-makers' memoirs, decisions or the absence thereof, and official declarations of the Russian government towards Ukraine and Belarus, as well as official agreements and empirical reality that exemplify the implementation of Russia's foreign policy. The empirical analysis reveals that geopolitical considerations, threat perception, interest groups, and decision-makers' perception of the past influenced the formation of Russia's foreign policy. Perception of the past, however, is fundamental to the understanding of this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's return to Russia in 1994, twenty years after his exile from the Soviet Union, was regarded by many as one of the most symbolic events of the immediate post-Cold War era. Arguably the most famous dissident of the Soviet period was returning to his native land, where communism had at last disintegrated and given way to a transitional-democratic regime. However, despite receiving a prophet's welcome upon his arrival, Solzhenitsyn showed nothing but contempt for the Russian government's efforts to stabilize the country amid economic and political turmoil. Within eighteen months, Solzhenitsyn had squandered any moral sway he might have held, and had been reduced to an out-of-touch curmudgeon and object of satire amid the Russian populace. Ten years later, however, Solzhenitsyn's name and works had been given a new relevance and popular appeal, in light of a government-led effort to restructure his persona for a new generation of citizens. The long-term process through which the Russian government has accomplished this is the focus of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the University of Calgary Gorbachev Foundation Public Policy Project (UCGF99) as a case study for exploring the challenges of international participation in promoting reform of the content and context of public policy in postcommunist Russia. Drawing on evidence from a series of interviews with Russian and Canadian participants, it focuses on how cultural and power issues played out in UCGF99's work. Because public policy stands at the juncture between state and society, public policy reform is an ideal rubric for exploring how values accompany aid and the way that the culture of the receiving society shapes the implementation of that aid. The interviews reveal an inherent tension between the ideal of egalitarian co-operation and the reality that the work done by the partnership was dedicated, ultimately, to the "reform" of one side by the other. They also highlight the extent to which reform is a process of translation: as concepts and international models make the transition to another society, their own cultural specificity becomes apparent, as does the challenge of translating them in a manner meaningful to the society undergoing "transition." This article focuses on two related questions of translation: how issues of language, culture and power played out in the "consultant" structure of UCGF99 partnerships, and the concrete challenges of transforming Russian political culture using Canadian models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]