This monograph analyzes major findings of fourteen years of public opinion research in Russia carried out under the New Russia Barometer survey research project, which Rose and colleagues conducted in conjunction with the Levada Centre in Russia. Rose, Mishler and Munro offer a clearly written, focused discussion that puts complex data into perspective. The work's major contribution is its systematic evaluation of the evolution of Russian citizens' political attitudes from 1992 to 2005. As the authors note in their dedication to the volume, their surveys included over 28,000 people across Russia (the methodology is outlined on pp. 70–75). As such, the book's authority in providing an accurate reflection of citizens' views is indisputable. Much to their credit, the authors render their findings readily understandable to readers who are not expert in survey research design or quantitative methods.

The authors contextualize their work by beginning with an assessment of the nature of Russia's current political system. The authors reject the view that Russia is a transitional democracy as indecisive wishful thinking. Instead, they take a stand by claiming that Russia is a “plebiscitarian autocracy” (13), which under Putin has produced a certain degree of stability. They note that the coexistence of weak rule of law and limited political choices at the polls serve to make Russia neither a bona fide democracy nor a textbook case of an authoritarian state. Russia's population, the authors argue, have become used to this state of affairs, and their overall compliance can largely be explained by the thesis that citizens instinctively relativize politics: many people accept the existing system because they see it as being somewhat better than either the Soviet regime or the most difficult years of the 1990s, when Boris Yeltsin was president. On the whole, however, the data suggest great diversity and variation in respondents' political views over time. Citizens remain divided on significant issues.

Within these overall arguments, the authors offer some intriguing findings, which are certain to inspire debate among specialists in Russian politics. For example, most people favour democracy in the abstract, but the average survey respondent saw the current political system as very close to the middle of a continuum between democracy and authoritarianism (128–30). Interesting too, is that citizens' perceptions of the amount of corruption in Russian government, are found to be relatively consistent over the period of study (169), as are high levels of citizens' discontent with their own standard of living (160). However, Russian individuals are less likely today than previously to tolerate a corrupt government (180) and, since 2000, they have overall become more optimistic about the country's long-term economic prospects (160, 173). The popular approval rating of President Putin is much higher than that of the Russian government (142–45, 181). While ethnic Russians are more likely than non-Russians to approve of the political status quo, the differences are only slight (109).

The book does show some weaknesses. Although the authors offer some insight into the role that variables such as age, ethnicity and region play in influencing political attitudes, it is disappointing that there is not more discussion of the degree of variation in political attitudes shown by different social groups. A second critique is that the authors, while they apply various political science approaches (such as path-dependency) to their work, they spend relatively little time reviewing the existing literature on post-communist political attitudes in Russia. Instead, they claim, with little elaboration, that much of the survey research completed by other scholars tends to rely too heavily on Western notions of democracy and on leaders, rather than analyzing the grass-roots views of Russian citizens on their own terms (see, for example, pp. 12 and 72). Such claims are open to debate, given the range of quality survey research that scholars have completed in Russia, and the great sophistication of some of these works (notably, Timothy J. Colton's Transitional Citizens: Voters and What Influences them in the New Russia, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). Russia Transformed would be stronger if the authors had more firmly anchored their results within a richer, even if critical, discussion of the content of other relevant works. Finally, the book, while clearly and carefully written, suffers at times from a somewhat dry writing style: given the intriguing nature of the findings, the research results at times could have been presented more boldly.

Notwithstanding these shortcomings, the book will be of value to readers who are Russian specialists as well as those interested in learning more about the country. The work's conciseness (there are few, if any wasted words here) enhances its potential attractiveness to students. More than a work on Russian political attitudes, Russia Transformed provides a good overview of Russian post-communist politics as a whole, and dares to offer insights into Russia's future prospects.