The book explores the experiences of crisis management in contemporary Russia, as well as policies in the former Soviet Union when they have had a direct bearing on the current situation. The first part of the volume describes the evolution of the institutional and legislative framwork and places this development in the larger realm of  Russian sociopolitical change. How a crisis is perceived through the eyes of the Russian media is also explored in this section. In the second part of the book, four case studies regarding some critical policy problems are presented.