Prologue Valerie Bunce, Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss Part I. Waves of Regime Change: From Dictatorship to Democracy … and Back?: 1. The missing variable: the 'international system' as the link between third and fourth wave models of democratization Michael McFaul 2. A regional tradition: the diffusion of democratic change under communism and post-communism Valerie Bunce and Sharon Wolchick Part II. Encouraging Democracy: The Role of the EU: 3. When Europeanization meets transformation: lessons from the unfinished East European revolutions Alina Pippidi 4. Democratization in post-communist Europe: illiberal regimes and the leverage of the European Union Milada Vachudova Part III. Choosing Regime Change: Democratizing Elections: 5. A post-communist transition in two acts: the 1996–97 antigovernment struggle in Bulgaria as a bridge between the 1989–92 and 1996–2007 democratization waves in Eastern Europe Tsveta Petrova 6. Defining and domesticating the electoral model: a comparison of Slovakia and Serbia Valerie Bunce and Sharon Wolchik 7. Georgia's rose revolution: from regime weakness to regime collapse Cory Welt 8. Importing revolution: internal and external factors in Ukraine's 2004 democratic breakthrough Michael McFaul Part IV. Resisting Reform: Backsliding Democracies and Enduring Autocracies: 9. Resistance to contagion: sources of authoritarian stability in the former Soviet Union Lucan Way 10. Comparing oranges and apples: the internal and external dimensions of Russia's turn away from democracy Kathryn Stoner-Weiss 11. Contagion deterred: preemptive authoritarianism in the former Soviet Union (the case of Belarus) Vitali Silitski 12. A horse of a different color: revolution and regression and Kyrgyzstan Scott Radnitz Epilogue: the changing character of the global struggle for democracy Valerie Bunce, Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss.