Vladimir Gel’man

Vladimir Gel'man will devote his visiting fellowship to preparing for a future book on failed democratization in Russia. Whimsically, he titles it “Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire? Post-Communist Regime Change in -Russia in a Comparative Perspective.”

The project will focus on the impact of political actors and political institutions as the major factors of regime change. Gel’man will analyze the dynamics of the post-Soviet elite—hypothesizing that elite “pacts” prevented democratization rather than enforced it. He will trace the process of institution building, with special attention to the informalization of the “rules of the game,” and explore the role of “critical junctures,” such as Yeltsin’s coup in 1993. Ultimately, he would like to include the Russian case in a broader theoretical and compar-ative perspective, drawing parallels with studies of transitions to semi-democratic regimes in different parts of the world.

An associate professor of political science at European University in St. Petersburg, Russia, Gel’man is co-author of Making and Breaking Democratic Transitions: The Comparative Politics of Russia’s Regions (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). He is a corresponding editor for the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research as well as a member of the editorial board of the Russian journal POLIS. In 2003, Gel’man held visiting professor positions at Central European University in Budapest and at the University of Texas at Austin. From 1995–98, he served as an associate member of the Central Electoral Commission of the Russian Federation. He received the Candidate of Political Sciences degree (PhD equivalent) from St. Petersburg State University and is a diploma engineer (MA equivalent).