Lawrence P. Markowitz draws on his extensive fieldwork in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to advance a theory of state failure focused on unlootable resources, rent seeking, and unruly elites.

Gerald M. Easter shows how the cumulative result of multiple big and small battles between state coercion and societal capital gave rise to postcommunism's variant political and economic institutions.

Dorothee Bohle and Bela Geskovits trace the fundamental decisions made by postsocialist countries that have joined the European Union since 2004 or are candidates to do so.

Kimberly Marten shows why and how warlords undermine state sovereignty. Unlike the feudal lords of a previous era, warlords today are not state-builders. They thrive on illegality and rely on private militias for support.

Jane R. Zavisca examines Russia's attempts to transition from a socialist vision of housing, in which the government promised a separate, state-owned apartment for every family, to a market-based and mortgage-dependent model of home ownership.

Hoffmann examines the Soviet government's implementation of sweeping social welfare and public health measures to safeguard people's well-being and literacy campaigns, political education, and efforts to instill in people an appreciation of high culture.

Through real and imagined geographies, examining post-Soviet debates about what it means to be Russian today.

An ethnography of recent societal transformations in Mongolia and their impact on local belief systems.

The relationship between ethnicity and nationalism in the republics of the Russian Federation.

Focusing on the region of post-Soviet Central Asia, Radnitz investigates the causes of elite-led protest in nondemocratic states, where economic and political opportunities create elites who are independent of the regime, yet vulnerable to harassment.