Eden Cole has a BA in War Studies and MA in Medieval History from the University of London. During further studies, he assisted with the compilation and editing of situation reports for humanitarian demining projects, articles on humanitarian issues, and edited various texts on post-Soviet and post-Cold War issues. He also worked as an Information Officer in the City of London 2000-2003. He is currently coordinator of the Outreach Department at the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces which deals with 'out of area' activities. His role involves assisting the Deputy Director, assisting with project planning and research, coordinating projects, liaising with partners, and undertaking editorial and writing tasks.

Anna Colin Lebedev, Anna Colin Lebedev received her PhD in Political Science from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris. She is now a post-doctoral fellow at the CERCEC, Centre d'étude des mondes russes, caucasien et centre-européen (UMR EHESS-CNRS 8083), Paris. She is currently living in Ukraine and conducting a research on the Ukrainian associations of “Afghantsy”, veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Her PhD research focused on the Soldiers’ Mothers movement in Russia, more particularly on the way collective action is conducted, based on people’s requests.Among her forthcoming publications are: « Mémoire vs autonomie : le Comité des mères de soldats de Russie et la mémoire de la guerre en Tchétchénie. », in Georges Mink (ed.), L’Europe post-communiste : ses gisements et usages mémoriels, Paris, Houdiard, 2010 and: “Rethinking the place of the personal concerns in the analysis of collective action: the case of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia”, forthcoming in: Alapuro, R., Pesonen, P. (ed.). Approaches to Russianness, Helsinki. She is the co-author, with Valentina Melnikova of the book Les petits soldats, Paris, Bayard, 2001.

Françoise Daucé has a Phd in Political Sciences. Her PhD Dissertation focused on « Military and Political Power in Post-Soviet Russia ». She has conducted research on issues concerning political and social aspects of military transformations as well as the relationships between state administration and civil mobilizations in contemporary Russia. She is the author of L'Etat, l'armée et le citoyen en Russie post-soviétique, Paris, L'Harmattan, Paris, 2001 and has written numerous articles about citizenship and military duties in Russia among which: "L'armée russe face à la pluralité religieuse" [The Russian Military Facing Religious Pluralism] in Most Journal on Multicultural Societies, vol. 2, # 2, 2001 (http://www.unesco.org/most/vl2n2edi.htm ) ; "Vliianie voinskoi sluzhby na politicheskuiu socializatsiuu rossiiskikh prizyvnikov" [The Influence of Military Service on the Political socialization of Russian youth]. Politeia, Moscou, # 2, Summer 2001. pp. 197 – 206; "L'armée dans l'histoire de l'Etat russe contemporain" [The Armed Forces in the History of the Russian Contemporary State]. Hérodote, # 104, 1st trimester 2002, pp. 119 – 143. From 2000 to 2002, she directed the Franco-Russian Center for Social and Human Sciences in Moscow. Since 2002, Françoise Daucé has coordinated the Franco-Russian exchange programs at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, in Paris. She is currently teaching Soviet History and Russian Politics at the University Blaise Pascal, in Clermont-Ferrand.

Gilles Favarel-Garrigues is a CNRS research fellow at the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI) since 2001. His Phd in Political Science entitled "Fighting Economic Crime in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, 1965-1995", was defended at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques (IEP) of Paris in December 2000. In 1999-2001, he worked as a research fellow at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Sécurité Intérieure (IHESI). He now teaches at the IEP of Paris and is a member of the editorial board of the journal Cultures et Conflits. He his the author of several articles on organized crime, business crime and police in Russia. He has recently edited Criminalité, police et gouvernement. Trajectoires post-communistes, Paris L'Harmattan, 2003, and published "Competition and Confusion in the Discourse on Organized Crime in Russia", Alternatives. Global, Local, Political, vol. 28, # 4, Aug-Oct 2003, p. 423-457. His former publications may be found at http://www.ceri-sciences-po.org/cherlist/favarel.htm.

Anne Le Huérou received her PhD in Sociology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She has conducted research on various issues concerning contemporary Russian Politics and Society, including local and regional politics and administration, demonstrations of violence, aspects of violence and repression in Russian society, local and community policing issues. She has especially focused on issues related to the war in Chechnya and its impacts on Russian Society since 1999. Her most recent publications are : "Elites in Omsk", Post-Soviet Affairs, # 4, 1999, pp. 362-386 ; Les pratiques de sécurité locale dans la Russie post-soviétique : Evolutions institutionnelles et nouveaux acteurs [Local Policing Initiatives and Practices in Post-Soviet Russia : Institutional Change and New Players]. Collection Etudes et Recherches ; Paris, IHESI, 2003 ; "La guerre en Tchétchénie au miroir de l'opinion russe : éphémère Union Sacrée ou facteur durable de consolidation nationale" [The War in Chechnya through the Eyes of Russian Public Opinion: Temporary Union Sacrée or a Long Lasting Feature of National Consolidation] in Hassner Pierre, Marchal Roland (Eds.), Guerre et Sociétés : Etat et violence après la guerre froide [War and Society : State and Violence after the Cold War]. Paris : Karthala/CERI, (collection Recherches internationales), 2003, p. 165-191 ; she contributed to Tchétchénie : 10 clés pour comprendre [Chechnya :Ten Keys to Understanding], Paris: La découverte, 2003.

Erica Marat received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Bremen, Germany, in 2005. She is a researcher at the Institute for Strategic & Development Policy and Central Asia - Caucasus Institute at the Johns Hopkins University. She has regularly published at the Jamestown Foundation and Central Asia - Caucasus Analyst and has conducted a number of research projects on the Central Asian military and security issues. Her interests include the production of ideologies, transnational criminal groups, and domestic corruption in the Central Asian states. She is currently writing a book on military institutions in the Central Asian region, looking at the military as an important part of state-building in the post-Soviet (post-colonial) period. She speaks Kyrgyz, Russian and English.

Amandine Regamey holds a PhD in Political Science. She is currently teaching Russian Language and Civilisation at the University Paris I (Pantheon Sorbonne) and is a member of the CERCEC (Centre for Russian, Caucasian and Central Asian Studies, EHESS/CNRS). She has been conducting research on the Chechen war since 1999, focusing on the representations of the war in Russian society and the army. She has been involved in several humanitarian projects in the North Caucasus and has conducted several fact-finding missions in Russia and the CIS for the FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights). Among her publications are:  « Le sauvage et le barbare : le corps de l’Autre dans les représentations croisées russo-tchétchènes » [The Savage and The Barbarian : the Other’s Body in Russian-Chechen Representations], in Textuel, 48, 2004 (together with Silvia Serrano) ; Tchétchénie : une affaire intérieure ? Russes et Tchétchènes dans l'étau de la guerre, [Chechnya: An Internal Problem? Russians and Chechens in the Grip of War], Autrement/CERI, 2005 (together with Anne Le Huérou, Aude Merlin and Silvia Serrano) ; « Russia’s War in Chechnya: The Discourse of Counterterrorism and the Legitimation of Violence » (with Anne Le Huérou) in Samy Cohen (dir.), Democracies at War against Terrorism, Palgrave, 2008 ; she is a regular contributor to pipss.org. She is currently involved in a research program called « Russian violence ? War experience, social trajectories and institutional practices », together with several members of PIPSS editorial board (program supported by the City of Paris).

Laurent Rucker holds a PhD in political science and he is lecturer at the Institut d’études politiques de Paris (Sciences-Po). His publications include Staline, Israel et les Juifs, Paris, PUF, 2001 and numerous articles on Soviet and Russian foreign policy and on the Revolutionary States in International Relations. He is also member of the editorial board of the journal Questions internationales published by La documentation française.

Elisabeth Sieca-Kozlowski, Doctor in Sociology, independant scholar and editor of Post-Soviet Armies Newsletter (http://www.psan.org/ ), an Internet publication dedicated to the study of post-Soviet power institutions. In partnership with A. Toumarkine she wrote Géopolitique de la Mer Noire, Paris, Karthala, 2000. She is also the author of several articles on the Russian military. Among them « Les femmes dans l'armée russe : une intégration à reculons » [Woman in the Russian army. An hesitant Integration], Le Courrier des Pays de l'Est, April 2002 ; « Coopération militaire en mer Noire. Un phénomène récent : la coopération Turquie – ex-pays de l'URSS » [Military Cooperation in the Black Sea. A New Phenomenon : the Cooperation Between Turkey and the Republics of the CIS], Regards sur l'Est, April 2003; « Political and Military Implications of the Integration of Cossacks in the Russian Armed Forces », in Social Change and the Armed Forces in Russia, Steve Webber & Jennifer Mathers Ed., London, Manchester University Press, 2005. From September 2005 to September 2006, she was an Associate Scholar at the CRIS (Centre de Recherches Internationales de la Sorbonne, Paris) where she led the CIS research team. In 2006, in partnership with Françoise Daucé, she co-edited Dedovshchina in the Post-Soviet Military: Hazing of Russian Army Conscripts in a Comparative Perspective, Stuttgart, Ibidem-Verlag. In 2008, with Anne Le Huérou, she co-edited and co-authored Culture militaire et patriotisme dans la Russie d’aujourd’hui, Paris, Karthala. She is currently a Research Associate at CERCEC Centre des mondes russes, caucasien et centre-européen (UMR EHESS-CNRS 8083), Paris.

Joris Van Bladel, Doctor in Arts (Slavic languages). He is working at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels. His main field of research is the human factor in the Russian military and power institutions. He is particularly interested in the organizational culture of these organizations and how they are embedded in the broader Russian culture. His forthcoming book "The All-Volunteer Force in the Russian Mirror : Transformation without Change" explains why the Russian armed forces are not able to change towards a western military organizational model. It emphasizes political and especially cultural reasons for this reform failure.