Brian Taylor

My primary research interests are in the realm of Russian politics. Much of my research has focused on the development of the Russian state, with particular attention to state coercive organizations, such as the military and the police. I also have written on Russian elite politics, including the nature of Putinism as a mentality and political system. Additional interests include comparative state-building and civil-military relations. 

I am currently writing a short introductory book on Russian politics. I also am conducting research on Russian security policy and Russian elite politics.

Books

The Code of Putinism (Oxford University Press, 2018)

State Building in Putin's Russia: Policing and Coercion After Communism (Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Politics and the Russian Army: Civil-Military Relations, 1689-2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2003). 

Recent Articles and Book Chapters

"What Happened to Soviet Security Studies?: An Essay on the State of the Field." Russian Politics Vol. 4, No. 2 (June 2019), pp. 196-210. 

"Intelligence," in Andrei P. Tsygankov, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 153-167. With Mikhail A. Strokan.

“The Russian Siloviki and Political Change.” Daedalus Vol. 146, No. 2 (Spring 2017), pp. 53-63.

“The Transformation of the Russian State,” in Stephan Leibfried, Evelyne Huber, Matthew Lange, Jonah D. Levy, Frank Nullmeier, and John D. Stephens, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Transformations of the State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 637-653.

“From Police State to Police State? Legacies and Law Enforcement in Russia,” in Mark  Beissinger and Stephen Kotkin, eds., Historical Legacies of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 128-151.

“Police Reform in Russia: The Policy Process in a Hybrid Regime.”  Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 30, Nos. 2–3 (2014), pp. 226–255.