One of the originators of 'putinology' in Russia, Stanislav Belkovskiy (Director of the National Strategy Institute, Moscow), and a leading expert in Britain on state-building in Russia, Dr Peter J S Duncan (Head of Department of Social Sciences at The School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London) discussed the Russian Constitution and its role in current political developments in Russia. They addressed the topical question of possible changes to the Russian Constitution and their possible consequences.

In 1999 Stanislav Belkovskiy founded a leading information agency, 'Political News Agency' (www.apn.ru), and recently the National Strategy Institute – an independent think tank, specializing in research on geopolitics, religious revival, church reforms and global development. Among his featured articles is a comprehensive report 'State and Oligarchy' of May 2003 that alerted to the danger of an oligarchy revanche. A recent project of the National Strategy Institute lead by Stanislav Belkovskiy focuses on the development of a new Constitution for Russia.

Peter Duncan is currently Senior Lecturer in Russian Politics and Society. His recent book 'Russian Messianism: Third Rome, Revolution, Communism and After' (2000) presents some profound research on the Russian mentality. He is now working on a book on contemporary Russian foreign policy.

Download Read press release (40 kilobyte PDF; need help viewing PDFs?)