Nikolay Petrov is Scholar in Residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center, where he chairs the programme ‘Society and regions.’ He also serves as a columnist for The Moscow Times, as member of PONARS-Eurasia and as member of the scientific board of The Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies. He is also member of the editorial board of Russian Politics and Law. Petrov earned his Ph.D. from the Moscow State University in 1982. In 1990–1995, he served as an advisor to the Russian parliament, government, and presidential administration. Petrov is author / editor of numerous publications dealing with, a.o., Russia’s political regime, post-Soviet transformation, socio-economic and political development of Russia’s regions, democratization, federalism, and elections. His works include the three-volume Political Almanac of Russia (1997, in Russian) and the annual supplements to it. He is co-author of Between Dictatorship and Democracy: Russian Post-Communist Political Reform (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004), The Dynamics of Russian Politics: Putin’s Reform of Federal-Regional Relations in two volumes (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, 2005), Putin’s Russia: Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), Overmanaged Democracy in Russia: Governance Implications of Hybrid Regimes (Carnegie papers, 2010), and Russia in 2020: Scenarios for the Future (CEIP, 2011).