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² Thus, the APSA annual meeting division on regimes is called “Comparative Democratization” and standard quantitative indicators for regime type—such as Freedom House and Polity—measure distance from a well-known set of standard democratic institutional practices.

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⁴ For exceptions, see Roeder, Philip, “Rejection of Authoritarianism,” in Anderson, R. et al. , eds., Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; McFaul (fn. 1).

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⁷ Naturally, capacity will not be an issue if leaders refuse to engage in antidemocratic behavior.

⁸ Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, “Linkage versus Leverage: Rethinking the International Dimension of Regime Change in the Post-Cold War Era,” Comparative Politics (forthcoming).

⁹ Holmes (fn. 3); Bunce, Valerie, “Rethinking Recent Democratization: Lessons from the Postcommunist Experience,” World Politics 55 (January 2003), 180–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ I emphasize discretionary control to distinguish it from the high scope of state legal powers over economies in developed capitalist countries.

¹¹ Circumstantial evidence for this argument comes from the widely noted positive correlation between privatization and democracy in the postcommunist world. See De Melo, Martha, Denizer, Cevdet, and Gelb, Alan, “From Plan to Market: Patterns of Transitions,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, no. 1564 (1996)Google Scholar.

¹² Geddes (fn. 5); Brownlee (fn. 5).

¹³ Przeworski, Adam, “Some Problems in the Study of the Transition to Democracy,” in O'Donnell, Guillermo et al. , eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986)Google Scholar, chap. 2.

¹⁴ Beissinger, Mark R., Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 76–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Slater, Dan, “Emotions in Motion: Identity Politics and Democratic Mobilization in Southeast Asia” (Paper presented at the conference, “Authoritarian Regimes: Conditions of Stability and Change,” Istanbul, May 29,2005Google Scholar).

¹⁵ Kopstein, Jeffrey S. and Reilly, David A., “Geographic Diffusion and the Transformation of the Postcommunist World,” World Politics 53 (October 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁶ Democrats controlled about one-third of parliamentary seats in 1990 in all four cases. Gerasiuk, Ivan, Agoniia Nomenklatury (Minsk “Belarus,” 1991), 49Google Scholar; Andrew Wilson, Ukrainian Nationalism: A Minority Faith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,), 120; Filatov, Sergei, Sovershenno nesekretno: kuluary rossiiskoi vlasti (Moscow: Vagrius, 2000), 46Google Scholar; Crowther, William, “Moldova: Caught between Nation and Empire,” in Bremmer, I. and Taras, R., eds., New States New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), chap. 8Google Scholar.

¹⁷ On the dynamics of state breakdown, see Richard Snyder “Does Lootable Wealth Breed Disorder? A Political Economy of Extraction Framework,” Working Paper no. 312 (South Bend, Ind.: Helen Kellogg Institute, July 2004).

¹⁸ There are 2003 figures in constant 1995 dollars; World Development Indicators Online.

¹⁹ My codings here more or less match Freedom House scores for these countries with the exception of Moldova, which was scored as less democratic in the early and mid-1990s. This appears to be because Freedom House included in their score the autocratic regime in the breakaway region of Transnistr. In contrast, my analysis includes only the regime controlled by Chisinau.

²⁰ A “high” score indicates that at least one of the activities is sufficiently high to eliminate uncertainty in the electoral process. A “moderate” score means that at least one of the activities is widespread enough to tilt the playing field seriously in favor of the incumbent—but not so much as to make the elections noncompetitive. For example, a moderate score reflects a level of vote stealing in the range of 5–10 percent (as in 1990s Serbia, Ukraine under Kuchma) that still leaves important opportunities for regime opponents—as opposed to the apparently much larger percentage in contemporary Azerbaijan and Belarus that make elections less meaningful.

²¹ A “high” score indicates the almost total absence of opposition views in large audience electronic media; a “moderate” score means that most electronic media is incumbent controlled but that there exist significant large audience media that openly criticize the government.

²² A highly weak opposition is one that has virtually no financing and/or organizational resources. A “moderate” weak opposition is one that has significant financial and organizational resources but is still seriously outmatched by the incumbent. Finally, a low score indicates an opposition that has roughly equal or greater financial and organizational resources than the incumbent.

²³ Linz, Juan J. and Valenzuela, Arturo, eds., The Failure of Presidential Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Fish, M. Steven “The Dynamics of Democratic Erosion,” in Anderson, et al. , eds. Post-Communism and the Theory of Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

²⁴ For a particularly sophisticated treatment of variations in legislative powers, see Fish, M. Steven, Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ Easter, Gerald, “Preference for Presidentialism,” World Politics 49 (January 1997)Google Scholar.

²⁶ McFaul (fn. 1).

²⁷ TASS, January 9,1992. Subsequently, however, Snegur was unable to secure a second term and faced a highly critical media and a strong parliament that basically dictated the terms of the 1994 constitution.

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²⁹ Author interview with Alyaksandr Dabravolskii, observer in the 1994 elections, Minsk, Belarus, June 21,2004.

³⁰ Haerpfer, Christian, “Electoral Politics of Belarus Compared,” in Korosteleva, E. et al. , eds., Contemporary Belarus (London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003)Google Scholar.

³¹ Kopstein and Reilly (fn. 15); Levitsky and Way (fn. 8).

³² Experience here is measured by the number of national-level multicandidate elections undertaken by the incumbent or his/her party (no national election experience=low; l=moderate; more than l=high). Elite organization reflects the extent to which the incumbent is able to rely on partisan organization to maintain power. (Low = absence of virtually any allied formal or informal groups that directly support the incumbent; moderate = existence of numerous and loosely organized groups allied to executive; high = single, vertically integrated formal or informal organization with high discipline and close ties to the incumbent.) Finally, authoritarian state capacity reflects the size of the state and the economy it controls; degree of central control over security agencies and local governments (measured by the extent and openness of insubordination by lower-level officials); and the scope of state control over the economy (measured by the extent of privatization and de facto central state control over economic actors). Despite its relatively small size, Belarus is scored as high in the late 1990s because of strong patronage from Russia (see discussion below). The salience of anti-incumbent national identity is measured by the relative elite and popular support of national identity that can be framed in anti-incumbent terms. Variations between moderate and high reflect the relative strength of different (anti-Russian and pro-Russian) anti-incumbent national identities within Moldova and Ukraine across time (see discussion below).

³³ Rigby, T. H. and Harasymov, Bohdan, eds., Leadership Selection and Patron-Client Relationships in the USSR and Yugoslavia (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983)Google Scholar.

³⁴ Author interview with Mircea Snegur, Chisinau, Moldova, February 8,2002.

³⁵ Keith Darden, “The Integrity of Corrupt States: Graft as an Informal State Institution,” Politics and Society (forthcoming).

³⁶ Dunlop, John, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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³⁸ Author interview with Rusnac Filaret, Lucinschi official in 1996 presidential campaign, Birdec, Moldova, July 28,2004.

³⁹ European Institute for the Media, The 1994 Parliamentary and Presidential Elections in Ukraine: Monitoring of the Election Coverage in the Ukrainian Mass Media (Düsseldorf: EIM, October 1994), 197–99,220–21Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ In contrast to Snegur or Kravchuk, Yeltsin was able to exchange regional autonomy for partisan support from many provinces and republics in the 1990s. However, these alliances proved remarkably tenuous, as numerous regional leaders abandoned the Kremlin in the run-up to the 1999 election. See Colton, Timothy J. and McFaul, Michael, Popular Choice and Managed Democracy: The Russian Elections of 1999 and 2000 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), 83–84Google Scholar.

⁴¹ For a more detailed discussion of the role of oligarchs in the collapse of the Kuchma regime, see Way, Lucan A., “Ukraine's Orange Revolution: Kuchma's Failed Authoritarianism,” Journal of Democracy 16 (April 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴² Author interview with anonymous source, former Kebich associate, Gomel', Belarus, July 9,2004

⁴³ Author interview with Aleksandr Feduta, Lukashenka campaign official in 1994, Minsk, Belarus, June 23, 2004.

⁴⁴ Most recently in April 2004, Lukashenka jailed Mikhail Marynich, a parliamentarian, whom Lukashenka feared was becoming too popular.

⁴⁵ Colton and McFaul (fn. 40), 53–56.

⁴⁶ Darden, Keith, “Literacy, Nationalization, and Political Choice: The Origins and Consequences of National Identities among the Post-Soviet States” (Manuscript, Department of Political Science, Yale University, 2002)Google Scholar.

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⁴⁸ Aslund, Anders, “Is the Belarusian Economic Model Viable?” in Lewis, A., ed., The EU and Belarus: Between Moscow and Brussels (London: Federal Trust, 2002), 182Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Author interview with Nicolae Andronic, parliamentary deputy (1990–2001), Chisinau, Moldova, February 12,2002.

⁵⁰ Author interview with Vladimir Novosiad, parliamentary deputy (1995–96), Minsk, July 8,2004. See also Mihailisko, Kathleen J., “Belarus: Retreat to Authoritarianism,” in Dawisha, Karen and Parrott, Bruce, Democratic Changes and Authoritarian Reactions in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), chap. 6Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Foreign Broadcast Information Service SOV-96—233. Several security officials interviewed by the author questioned whether militia would have agreed to attack parliament.

⁵² Perhaps as a result, Belarus has had one of the lowest levels of inequality in the world; http://www.worldbank.org/data/ wdi2000/pdfstab2_8.pdf. One parliamentary deputy interviewed by the author commented that in contrast to Ukraine, where he had recently spent time, “you just don't see rich people in parliament”; author interview with Novosiad (fn. 50).

⁵³ Thus, the imprisonment of former government official Mikhail Marynich was generally tied to the official's frequent visits to Moscow and Lukashenka's fears that he was secretly negotiating with Putin on how to unseat the president.

⁵⁴ Opposition deputies were able to convince the police to take down all roadblocks within a day and a half after protests began. Author interview with official close to Yulia Tymoshenko, Kyiv, December 28,2004.

⁵⁵ Kuzio, Taras, “Security Forces Begin to Defect to Viktor Yushchenko,” Eurasia Daily Monitor 1, issue 137 (December 1,2004)Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Russia has 4.6 percent of global oil reserves and is the world's largest supplier of natural gas; CIA Factbook (2004).

⁵⁷ Appointments were often made by “chance” in the early 1990s. Korzhakov, Aleksandr, Boris El'tsin: Ot rassveta do zakata (Moscow: Interbuk, 1997), 123;Google ScholarKostikov, V., Roman s prezidentom (Moscow: Vagrius, 1997), 271Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ El'tsin, B., Zapiski Prezidenta (Moscow: Ogonek, 1994), 386;Google ScholarYeltsin, Boris, Struggle for Russia (New York: Belka Publishing, 1994), 11–13Google Scholar; El'tsin, B., Prezidentskii Marafon (Moscow: AST, 2000), 32Google Scholar.

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⁶⁵ Despite a large Russian population in Kazakhstan, the country has not faced the same cleavages as in Ukraine or Moldova because Kazakh national identity was not salient prior to its incorporation into the Soviet Union.

⁶⁶ McGlinchey, “Paying for Patronage: Regime Change in Post-Soviet Central Asia” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 2003), 13.

⁶⁷ Bellin (fn. 5); Herbst, Jeffrey, “Political Liberalization in Africa after Ten Years,” Comparative Politics 33 (April 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.