SEER, 91, 4, OCTOBER 2013 940 special attention paid to both the institutional framework and to the rights perspective which Robert Dahl brings to representative democracy through his model in his study, Polyarchy (New Haven, CT, 1971). In chapter seven we move to the level of citizens, the better to understand the degree of political support within the framework provided by Pippa Norris in her book entitled Critical Citizens (New York and Oxford, 1999). Finally, chapter eight aims to bring together the threads of previous chapters and draws conclusions in order to answer the three research questions posed previously in this chapter. Whether, as the author asks (p. 182), the Moldovan nation-building project will achieve sufficient consensus to be considered consolidated is open to question. Nevertheless, this highly-stimulating study encourages us to believe that if there is no major upheaval in the political system, if efforts towards democratization continue and democracy is embedded within an institutional setting that does not threaten to concentrate power in the hands of one group, then it is likely that Moldova will become stable. Georgetown University Dennis Deletant Washington, D.C. Curanović, Alicja. The Religious Factor in Russia’s Foreign Policy. Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series, 31. Routledge, London and New York, 2012. x + 353pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £ 95.00. In this monograph, the author seeks to explore the hypothesis that the religious factor in Russia’s foreign policy is growing and that it has an influence on the country’s place in the world (p. 1). This view is based on the idea that religion, especially Orthodoxy, plays an important role in defining Russian culture and national identity and that this impacts on the way in which the political elite regards and relates to other countries. In addition to the introduction and conclusion, the book consists of thirteen research chapters which are divided into two parts. The first part deals with the historical, sociological and philosophical background to this topic, whereas the second part explores the role that ‘religious diplomacy’ plays in Moscow’s policies towards more than twenty countries. The author makes a conscious effort to include all of the so-called traditional religions (i.e. Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism) in her discussion, but rightly focuses mainly on Orthodoxy and the Moscow Patriarchate in the second part. She thus achieves the description of the different shapes which the religious factor has taken in Russia’s foreign policy, but also provides a good overview of the religious structures which exist inside the country, public opinion and the religious policies pursued by different Russian rulers. REVIEWS 941 The book, however, provides little evidence to either support or disprove the hypothesis it is meant to discuss. It merely illustrates that Orthodoxy plays different roles in Russian foreign policy. Whereas the chapters in the first part are long and detailed those in part two are relatively short in comparison. For example, the chapter on RussoAmerican relations only counts four pages and the chapter on China and India contains six pages of which only approximately one is devoted to India. As Curanović argues, the religious factor does not play a crucial role in Moscow’s policy towards the United States which partially explains the length of the chapter. Another reason for the brevity in the second part is certainly the word limit set by the publisher. With this in mind, my main criticism would be that the qualitative approach based on case studies, which is taken in this volume, is not ideal for the exploration of this topic, especially if the aim is to provide an overview of Russia’s relations with such a vast number of states. The reason for this is that this methodology results in many descriptive rather than analytical passages and occasionally also leads to unsubstantiated claims, generalizations and superficial statements. For example, Curanović posits that the Russian Orthodox Church represents the Russian state abroad in some ways (p. 98), but does not really investigate in which ways this might be so. Also, she claims that countries which allow the Moscow Patriarchate to open new sites in their territory do so as they wish to intensify their cooperation with...