TOMILA V. LANKINA is Faculty Fellow at the School of International Service, American University and research associate at the World Resources Institute in Washington, DC, USA. She is the author of Governing the Locals: Local Self-Government and Ethnic Mobilization in Russia. ANNEKE HUDALLA is a scholar and journalist specializing on the politics of the Czech Republic. She is the author of Au enpolitik in den Zeiten der Transformation: Die Europapolitik der Tschechischen Republik 1993-2001 (Foreign Policy in the Time of Transition: European Policy of the Czech Republic, 1993-2