Putin's Kleptocracy_Who Owns Russia?

by Karen Dawisha

  At Miami, I was fortunate to have wonderful support both for this book and in the running of the Havighurst Center from the program coordinator, Lynn Stevens, who has developed the website for this book, helped by Kathryn Forrester, at www.miamioh.edu/havighurstcenter/putins-russia. Readers will be able to find the entire bibliography and a timeline of Russian politics with live links, as well as all the documents used for this book from Russian and other sources, including many that have been scrubbed from Russian sites. Also, a huge thanks to Miami’s Slavic librarian, Masha Stepanova, who helped me track down many books and articles on Russia, and to the library’s Elias Tzoc Caniz for help with Spanish sources.

  Many students over quite a few years now have helped in gathering and verifying information for this book, or have done research projects that ran parallel to the book. Many of them have now gone on to successful careers in journalism, government, and higher education—they include James Nealy, Victoria Kirnos, Peter Podkopaev, and several wonderful students from Russia, Ukraine, and central Asia whom I would have loved to thank by name. Thanks also to Angela Trubceac, who as a Muskie Fellow ably transcribed the testimonials by Lead Investigator Zykov that are referred to throughout the book and posted on the book’s website. Sarah-Christin Müller’s work in gathering and translating the Stasi archive documents referenced in the book and also included on the book’s website was part of a joint project we did when she had a summer research scholarship at Miami, and is also greatly appreciated.

  The Center has been able to host many top Russian academics, journalists, and analysts over the last decade, and I want to thank them for their contributions and insights, from which I learned so much. I have known many of them for decades, and it is a privilege to call them friends. I am full of admiration for the very high quality of work that they do under sometimes quite difficult circumstances.

  Here at Miami, my own colleagues have been a great source of support and encouragement, reading multiple versions of various chapters in our research seminars. Special thanks for their support and friendship go to Venelin Ganev, Scott Kenworthy, Neringa Klumbytė, Steve Norris, Dan Prior, Ben Sutcliffe, and Zara Torlone.

  For all of these contributions, I really am most grateful. It would not have been the book it is without the help and encouragement of so many people. Having said that, in no way do I assume any of them share my views on any of the subjects covered in the book.

  Finally, my great thanks also go to my husband, Adeed Dawisha, who read every word of this manuscript several times, in the process learning much more about Putin than is healthy for a Middle East specialist. Our many discussions about the comparative trajectory of authoritarian regimes gives me hope that at some point in the future Russians will be able to have leaders whom they freely choose, in a society that truly values their unique and significant culture and history, a view of Russia that I hope I have passed on to my own children, Emile and Nadia, and to my many students in the U.K. and the U.S. over these last forty years of teaching.

  Karen Dawisha

  Oxford, Ohio

  August 4, 2014

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  © THE WILSON CENTER

  Karen Dawisha has been the director of the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies, and, since 2000, the Walter E. Havighurst Professor of Political Science at Miami University. She received her Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.

  She has served as an advisor to the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and as an International Affairs Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a member of the Policy Planning Staff and the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs of the U.S. State Department (1985–87). Until the summer of 2000, she was a Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland and the director of its Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies. She has had extensive overseas experience, living abroad from 1969 to 1983 in England and from 1990 to 1991 in Egypt, and having undertaken more than three dozen research trips to Russia, central and eastern Europe, and central Asia, and has traveled widely in Europe and the Middle East.

  Professor Dawisha has received fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, the Council on Foreign Relations, the British Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Fulbright-Hays Program. She has served on the national boards of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies, the Kennan Institute, and the Social Science Research Council’s Eurasia Program and its Committee on International Peace and Security.

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  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  A full bibliography with live URLs, an annotated timeline, and key documents is available at www.miamioh.edu/havighurstcenter/putins-russia.

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