356 SEER, 83, 2, 2005 key obstacle. Finally,Saxonberg considersthe prospectsfor a Czech women's movement, given the rejection by Czechs including many Czech feminists of Western feminism, which seemingly echoed the rhetoric of the (in fact, highly patriarchal)Communist regime. Here, Saxonberg suggeststhat a re-framingof existing discourses(forexample, Czechs as leadersin Europe or Czech society as historically lacking gender divisions) represents the best prospect for the Czech Republic's small feminist NGOs and Communist-era women's organizationsto become an influentialsocial movement. At bottom, in both parts of the book, Saxonberg asks why the trends towardspost-materialistgender and identitypolitics seen in post-warWestern Europe have not made themselves felt more forcefully on the centre-left in East CentralEurope'smost secularand historicallymodern society. Although the author'stone of self-appointedconsultantto the Czech left will gratewith some readers,this is an intriguingand worthwhile question. Disappointingly, however, the book's analysis often becomes bogged down in cataloguing differencesbetween East and West, neglecting the more interestingquestions concerning the interaction of post-Communist realitiesand post-moderntrends to which the Czech Republic was opened up after I989. Overall, however, the book combines an accessiblywritten,up-to-date account of Czech politics with more grounded research on gender issues, which will interest both general and specialistreaders. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies SEAINHANLEY University College London Troxel, Tiffany A. Parliamentary Powerin Russia, I994-200.: Presidentvs Parliament. St Antony's Series. Palgrave, Basingstoke and New York, 2003. xvi + 251 Pp. Tables. Notes. Bibliography.Index. f47.50. TIFFANY TROXEL'sbook on the development of Russia'sparliamentmakes a lot of claims both about Russia's parliament, about the nature of executivelegislativerelationsgenerally , and about the book itself. Some of these claims arevalid, many, unfortunately,are not. Troxel's first big (and oft-repeated) claim is that her book is the first publishedon thissubject.This is wrong since therehave now been a couple of books that Troxel even cites by Thomas Remington (one with Steven Smith) that have looked at the development and powers of the Russian parliament and specifically at the Duma, which appeared in 2001 from Harvard and Princeton University Presses.This claim is a clue to one of the main problems of the book. It was obviously finished as a piece of PhD research in late I998 or early 1999. At that time Troxel's main claim in the book, that the powers of parliament were more considerable than generally imagined, did not look unreasonablein the wake of the August I998 crisisand El'tsin'ssubsequentpolitical retreat.A chapter at the end of the book on the period May i999 to January 2001, whilst not a bad summary of events, is bolted on to the rest of the work;it even comes after the concluding chapter REVIEWS 357 on parliamentary power and democratic transition and consolidation in Russia that covers the I994-99 period. Although therewere some changes in the balance of power between the executive and the legislature during 1999-2001, Troxel does not modifyherassertionthat thepower of parliament grewover the course of the late I990S. Indeed, she arguesthat although 'Putin wants to strengthen the state, it is not at the expense of the Duma' (p. I9I). Parliamentaryand presidentialpowers are not, she argues,mutuallyexclusive and their relationship is not a zero-sum game. However, as we are starting Putin's second term, and afterBeslan, the ideas that Putin has not weakened the legislature and does not want to, and that presidential power can grow with parliamentary power look somewhat dated. So what is the analytical problem that leads Troxel to thisposition? Troxel's claim that executive-legislative powers can grow mutually is logically correct and is a possible outcome of executive-legislativeinteraction in Russia. However, this does not mean that it is true in Russian reality and the conditions under which it might be true need careful consideration. It is questionablethat Troxel providesan argumentabout such conditions, or that she demonstratesthat they exist. The reasonfor this is that she triesto build a model of executive-legislativerelations that looks both at formal powers and at actual powers (more or less the use of formalpowers). Formalpowers, she argues, may not be used by the agents that have them, so the best way to...