The previous chapter showed that there is indeed a civil society in post-Soviet Russia and the Baltic states and that a lot of different NGO activities are going on in the region. Nevertheless, post-Soviet civil society is generally depicted as weak and the reasons for this are to be found in the relationships between civil society and the state as well as other social spheres, such as political and economic society. This chapter offers an analysis of these relationships based on the theoretical framework presented in Chapter 2 and empirical findings from the survey as well as qualitative research in three Russian regions. First, however, I summarize findings from previous research on state-civil society relations in Russia.