Professor Neil Robinson is a Senior lecturer in Politics at the University of Limerick, where he is the course Director of the Bachelor in Politics and International Relations. He is a specialist in the fields of Russian and post-communist politics, particularly the political economy of post-communism and post-communist state building. He is the author of Ideology and the collapse of the Soviet system. He is equally the editor or co-editor of Institutions and political change in Russia, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), Reforging the weakest link: global political economy and post-Soviet change in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), (Aidan Hehir) State-building. Theory and practice, (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), and (with Todd Landman), The Sage handbook of comparative politics, (London: Sage, 2009). M. Robinson taught previously at the Universities of York and Essex. He is the author of articles in several journals including Soviet Studies, European Journal of Political Research, Political Studies, The Journal of Communist Studies and Transitional Politics, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Demokratizatsiay, Review of International Political Economy. [read more]