News release: “The authoritarian countries of the former Soviet Union have built governance systems that are resistant to reform and therefore increasingly vulnerable to unpredictable crises of the sort recently seen in the Middle East and North Africa, according to a new study released by Freedom House. Nations in Transit 2011, the latest edition of Freedom House’s annual assessment of democratic development in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, also finds that the ever-growing tenures of authoritarian leaders in the former Soviet Union have contributed to a number of looming governance problems, including the inability to develop law-based systems, tackle corruption, and—especially in the case of energy-dependent states such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia—diversify their economies.”