Celeste Wallander has written an excellent book, one that will appeal to Europeanists, post-Soviet scholars, and especially theorists of international relations... The issue is no longer whether institutions matter (we know they do) but how they have effects. Do they constrain state strategies or constitute core state properties? Wallander's book should be a model for both rationalists and constructivists as they debate these issues in the years ahead.- Jeffrey T. Checkel, Universitetet i Oslo (American Political Science Review) Recommended for international and security relations collections in larger public and academic libraries.(Library Journal) Relying mainly on interviews with senior politicians and foreign and defense officials in Germany and Russia, Wallander also takes advantage of the opportunity to assemble the public record of the range of issues in German-Russian relations since the end of the Cold War. The reader will find concise, informative presentations of the following: withdrawal of Russian forces from the former East Germany, renegotiation of the CFE to accommodate Russian demands for larger forces in the troubled North Caucasus, Russia's relations with other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, problems of migration with other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, problems of migration into both countries, NATO enlargement, international aspects of Russian economic and financial reform, and (all too briefly) Russian and German policy toward the breakup of Yugoslavia....Wallander has written a fine book.- Richard Anderson (Slavic Review)