Career: Ronald Hill has been Professor of Comparative Government at Trinity College Dublin since 1991 and is a Senior Fellow, having been Junior Lecturer, Lecturer and Associate Professor of Political Science. Previously he was Senior Associate Member of St Antony's College, Oxford in 1979. He was Visiting Fullbright Professor at Lafayette College, Easton, PA between 1981 and 1982, an Associate of the Institute for Soviet and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow in 1988, and Fellow-in-Residence at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies. He is General Editor of Studies of Communism in Transition and ICCEES Warsaw Congress Proceedings, Editor of Irish Slavonic Studies, co-editor of the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics (see url below), and a member of the Editorial Board of Russian Government and Law.

Publications include: Soviet Political Elites: The Case of Tiraspol 1977, Soviet Politics, Political Science and Reform 1980, The Soviet Communist Party (co-author) 1981, The Soviet Union: Politics, Economics and Society 1985, Communist Politics Under the Knife: Surgery or Autopsy? 1990, Gorbachev and Perestroika: Towards a New Socialism? (co-editor) 1990, Beyond Stalinism: Communist Political Evolution (editor) 1992, Modern Irish Democracy: Essays in Honour of Basil Chubb (co-editor) 1993; 60 published articles and chapters on Russian, Soviet, East and Central European politics

Contact details: Address: Room 4042, Department of Political Science, Arts Block, Trinity College Dublin, 2–3 College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland; Tel: +353 (0)1 8961078; Fax: +353 (0)1 6770546; Email: rhill@tcd.ie ; Website: http://www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/ ; Website: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13523279.asp/ .