AOSHIMA YOKO
            is a Research Fellow of the Slavic
            Research Center. She is also a PhD candidate in European History,
            writing her dissertation on
            educational
            reforms in Russia's great reforms. Her recent publication is "The
            Dissolution of
            the Estate-based Russian Secondary Education System, 1862-1864 (in
            Japanese)," Shigaku-Zasshi,
            vol.
            116, no.1, 2007. 
             
           | 
        
        
          GRZEGORZ
              EKIERT is Professor of Government at
            Harvard University. He is
            the author of The State Against
              Society: Political Crises and Their
              Aftermath in East
              Central Europe, among others. His current projects explore
            patterns of
            civil society
            development in the new democracies of Central Europe and East Asia. He
            is a
            member of the Club of Madrid Advisory Committee. 
             
           | 
        
        
          HIWATARI MASATO
            is JSPS Postdoctoral Research
            Fellow at the Institute of
            Oriental Cultures, the University of Tokyo. He is the author of Kansyukeizai to
              Shizyo, Kaihatsu (University of Tokyo Press, 2008). He is
            currently
            applying social
            network analysis to development economics, focusing on the
            socio-economic
            structures of the local communities in Uzbekistan. 
             
           | 
        
        
          PANAYOT
              KARAGYOZOV is Professor and Dean of
            the Faculty of Slavic Studies
            at Sofia University, Bulgaria. He is the author of The Self-consciousness of Letters.
              Historiography of Slavic Literatures (Sofia, 1996); Past Slavs Today
            (Sofia, 1997); Slavic
              Saint Martyrs. Sainthood and Canonization; Chronology and Typology;
              Criticism and
              Apology of Slavic Martyrdom (Sofia, 2006). He is presently
            preparing a
            monograph
            on Slavic Literary Partocentrism. 
             
           | 
        
        
          MARLÈNE
              LARUELLE is a Research Fellow at the
            Central Asia and Caucasus
            Institute, Johns Hopkins University. Her main areas of expertise are
            nationalism,
            national identities, political philosophy, intellectual trends and
            geopolitical
            conceptions of the elites in Russia and Central Asia. Her book, The
              Russian
              Eurasianism. An Ideology of Empire, will be published in Spring
            2008. 
             
           | 
        
        
          MOTOMURA
              MASUMI is Chief Researcher in the
            Research Department, Oil &
            Gas Upstream Business Unit, Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National
            Corporation
            (JOGMEC). He is the author of Russia
              - Revival of the Oil Giant (IDE-Jetro, 2005).
            He continues to analyze oil & gas production and transportation of
            the CIS and
            its surrounding regions. 
             
           | 
        
        
          NAGAYAMA YUKARI
            is Post-doctoral Researcher of
            the Research Institute for
            Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign
            Studies.
            She is the author of Ocherk
              grammatiki aliutorskogo iazyka (ELPR
            Publications Series
            A2-038) (Osaka Gakuin University, 2003). 
             
           | 
        
        
          NAKAI KAZUO
            is Professor of Tokyo University
            and President of the Japanese
            Association for Ukrainian Studies. He is the author of Ukrainian
              Nationalism
            (Tokyo University Press, 1998). He is presently preparing a study on
            Ukrainian
            political thought in the 19th and 20th centuries. 
             
           | 
        
        
          SÉBASTIEN
              PEYROUSE is a Research Fellow at the
            Central Asia and Caucasus
            Institute, Johns Hopkins University. His main areas of expertise are
            political
            systems in Central Asia, Islam and religious minorities, and Central
            Asia's
            geopolitical positioning toward China, Russia and South Asia. He is the
            author,
            co-author or editor of seven books on Central Asia. 
             
           | 
        
        
          LÁSZLÓ
              PÓTI
            is Senior Research Fellow at the
            Institute of Strategic and Defence
            Studies of the National Defence University in Budapest and editor of
            Security and
            Defence Policy Review (monthly in Hungarian). His most recent
            publication is "The
            Post-Soviet Space as Security Challenge" (co-author in Hungarian) in
            Deák Péter,
            ed., Osiris Kézikönyvek
            (2007). Forthcoming is A Comparative
              Study on
              Security
              Perception in the Western Balkans (DCAF, Geneva) 
             
           | 
        
        
          JAN
              ŠÍR
            is Research Fellow in the Department of
            Russian and East European
            Studies, Institute of International Studies, Charles University,
            Prague. Presently
            he is completing his doctoral dissertation on nuclear renunciation in
            the
            post-Soviet space. He is co-author of Turkmenistan
              under Berdymuhammedov
            (forthcoming). 
             
           | 
        
        
          TAKIGUCHI
              JUNYA is a postgraduate student at
            the School of Arts, Histories
            and Cultures, University of Manchester (UK). He is currently preparing
            his PhD
            thesis that examines the Russian Communist Party Congress during the
            formative
            stage of the Soviet Union (1917- c. 1930). 
             
           |