The article designs an empirical model to compare the level of engagement of de facto states in Eurasia by three great powers and non-great power patron states. The authors build diagrams based on three variables – military, political, and economic – whose indicators are determined by an expert survey. Russia engages the most de facto states and to the greatest degree, while the US falls behind since engaging the de facto states is not a key national security concern. However, neither holds a universal principle of engaging de facto states – each case is treated based on broader political and national security considerations. China, wary of domestic separatism, has no military ties with the de facto states and limited economic and political engagement. Taiwan scores the highest among the de facto states with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Abkhazia falling behind by a large margin. The Peoples’ Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk and Transnistria score the lowest. The study reveals, the degree of engagement matters more than the number of the UN member states formally recognizing a de facto state.

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How can institutional reforms ensure the transit of power in nondemocratic regimes? Having studied five cases in and around the Post-Soviet space, the authors offer three models of such transit: establishment of new institutions (Kazakhstan), parallel evolution of formal institutions and informal norms (China, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan), legalization of transit effected through informal norms (Iran). In the first model, the leader of the nation had his role perpetuated, received lifelong privileges and retained control over the security council with enhanced powers, some of the powers of the president being transferred to parliament. The second model observes the transit of power in three stages: the achievement of intra-elite consensus on new leadership, the occupation of key positions by the accepted individuals, and legitimation of the outcome through formal procedures. The third model is the result of an institutional reform that was not completed by the time of transit: the transfer of power looked legitimate to those who made an informal decision by imitating the formal procedure, but was illegal – legal provisions for such transit were adopted two months later. All the studied cases share three features: 1) the government conducts institutional reforms to ensure the transit of power, 2) elections are held, but instead of shaping new government they legitimize the agreements of the elites, 3) informal agreements are no less important than the institutional structure, the latter often being amended to match the former.