Authors

Doctor Sarah E. Mendelson is a senior fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 1993 and her B.A. in history from Yale University in 1984. Since 1990s, she has worked on problems linking to human rights and development of democracy in Russia. In 1994 and 1995, she also served on the staff of the National Democratic Institutes Moscow office. In the late 1990s, she directed a collaborative study, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, evaluating the impact of Western democracy assistance to Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The project resulted in a monograph and several articles published and numerous briefings held for government officials and nongovernmental organisations working in this region.

Doctor Theodore P. Gerber is Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkley, in 1995 and his B.A. from the Michigan University in 1987. He is an expert in survey research methods, quantitative methodology, modern Russian society, social stratification and political sociology. He developed (in full on in part) six questionnaires designed for a large statistic sample that were implemented in Russia by VTSIOM beginning in January 1998. He also held numerous group meetings on specific topics and conducted a huge number of interviews in Russia.

The Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, US, handles projects comprising research, analysis, and action. At the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Ms Mendelson manages projects that explore threats to and the potential of democracy and human rights with an emphasis on Russia. Thanks to the Center for Strategic and International Studies enjoying the reputation of an independent and highly professional organisation, results of this project will be interesting not only to the usual audience of western and Russian nongovernmental structures, but also to broader populations. The Center for Strategic and International Studies and this project can draw attention to those problems from policy-makers in Washington and, potentially, in Moscow. One way to draw attention is to implement PONARS — the Program on New Approaches to Russian Security funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, also developed at CSIS. PONARS is a programme well-known in the world of politics. It is known in the US and Russia as a source of well-thought-out and accurate information on a vast variety of questions related to Russia. PONARS group members Ms Mendelson and Mr Gerber distributed results of their research in 2001 by means of a series of memoranda. They also published in the Russian press on 22 April 2002 on the Russian website Polit.ru.