Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics. By M. Steven Fish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 313p. $29.99.

In recent years, it has been become abundantly clear that the democratic project in Russia has stalled. In 2004, Freedom House even moved Russia from the “partly free” to “not free” list of states. Russia's democratic shortcomings are legion and well known: corruption, human rights abuses, electoral manipulation, use of the courts to silence regime opponents, and state control over the media. However, there has been little systemic attempt to explain why democracy has not been established in Russia.