Kathleen Collins is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and Faculty Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. She has published articles in World Politics, Comparative Politics, the Journal of Democracy, and several edited volumes. She has received grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the United States Institute for Peace, IREX, and the National Council for Russian, East European and Eurasian Research, among others. Dr Collins was named a Carnegie Scholar in 2003 for her research. She has been conducting research throughout Central Asia for eleven years, since 1994.

• List of Tables and Figures; Preface; Acknowledgements; Note on Transliteration; 1. An introduction to political development and transition in Central Asia; 2. Clan politics and regime transition in Central Asia: a framework for understanding politics in clan-based societies; 3. Colonialism to Stalinism: the dynamic between clans and the State; 4. The informal politics of Central Asia from Brezhnev through Gorbachev; 5. Transition from above or below? (1990–1991); 6. Central Asia's transition (1991–1995); 7. Central Asia's regime transformation (1995–2004): Part I; 8. Central Asia's regime transformation (1995–2004): Part II; 9. Positive and negative political trajectories in clan-based societies; 10. Conclusion; Epilogue; Appendix; Index.

"The author is to be commended for seeking to reorient comparative politics toward the study of informal relations and politics and for her attention to Central Asia's pre-transition history. The book is stimulating." Sada Aksartova, Japanese Journal of Political Science