Presidential term limits restrict the maximum length of time that presidents can serve in office. They stipulate the length of term the presidents can serve between elections and the number of terms that presidents are permitted to serve. While comparative scholarship has long studied important institutions such presidentialism vs. parliamentarism and the effects of different electoral systems, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the role and effects of presidential term limits. Yet presidential term limits and term lengths are one of the most fundamental institutions of democracy. By ensuring compulsory rotation in office, they are at the heart of a democratic dilemma. What is the appropriate trade-off between allowing the unrestricted selection of candidates at presidential elections vs. restricting selection procedures to prevent the possibility of dictatorial takeover by presidents who are unwilling to step down? In the context of a long and on-going history of changes to presidential term limits and the many and varied ways in which term limits have been both applied and avoided, this book explains the factors behind the introduction, stability, abolition, and avoidance of presidential term limits, as well as the consequences of changes to presidential term limits, and it does so in the context of non-democracies, third-wave countries, and consolidated democracies. It includes comparative, theoretical, and practitioner-oriented chapters, as well as detailed country case studies of presidential term limits across the world and over time.

The New Kremlinology is the first in-depth examination of the development of regime personalization in Russia. In the post-Cold War period, many previously democratizing countries experienced authoritarian reversals whereby incumbent leaders took over and gravitated towards personalist rule. Scholars have predominantly focused on the authoritarian turn, as opposed to the type of authoritarian rule emerging from it. In a departure from accounts centred on the failure of democratization in Russia, this book's argument begins from the assumption that the political regime of Vladimir Putin is a personalist regime in the making. Focusing on the politics within the Russian ruling coalition since 1999, The New Kremlinology describes the process of regime personalization, that is, the acquisition of personal power by a leader. Drawing from comparative evidence and theories of personalist rule, the investigation is based on four components of regime personalization: patronage networks, deinstitutionalization, media personalization, and establishing permanency in office. The fact that Russia has gradually acquired many, but not all of, the characteristics associated with a personalist regime, underscores the complexity of political change and the need to unpack the concept of personalism. The lessons of the book extend beyond Russia and illuminate how other personalist and personalizing regimes emerge and develop. Furthermore, the title of the book, The New Kremlinology, is chosen to emphasize not only the subject matter, the what, but also the how the battery of innovative methods employed to study the black box of non-democratic politics. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterized by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit www.ecprnet.eu The series is edited by Susan Scarrow, John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston, and Jonathan Slapin, Professor of Political Institutions and European Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich.