V. The return of history.

This book presents the most important areas of economic transformation in East-Central Europe. It describes the short experience of statehood of the newly independent states and deals with two topical problems of the leading reforming countries: with fiscal policy and industrial policy.

Offering a single, coherent framework of the political, economic, and social phenomena that characterize post-communist regimes, this is the most comprehensive work on the subject to date. Focusing on Central Europe, the post-Soviet countries and China, the study provides a systematic mapping of possible post-communist trajectories. At exploring the structural foundations of post-communist regime development, the work discusses the types of state, with an emphasis on informality and patronalism; the variety of actors in the political, economic, and communal spheres; the ways autocrats neutralize media, elections, etc. The analysis embraces the color revolutions of civil resistance (as in Georgia and in Ukraine) and the defensive mechanisms of democracy and autocracy; the evolution of corruption and the workings of “relational economy”; an analysis of China as “market-exploiting dictatorship”; the sociology of “clientage society”; and the instrumental use of ideology, with an emphasis on populism. Beyond a cataloguing of phenomena—actors, institutions, and dynamics of post-communist democracies, autocracies, and dictatorships—Magyar and Madlovics also conceptualize everything as building blocks to a larger, coherent structure: a new language for post-communist regimes. While being the most definitive book on the topic, the book is nevertheless written in an accessible style suitable for both beginners who wish to understand the logic of post-communism and scholars who are interested in original contributions to comparative regime theory. The book is equipped with QR codes that link to www.postcommunistregimes.com, which contains interactive, 3D supplementary material for teaching.

This volume makes JEC-commissioned expert studies of economic developments in East-Central Europe available to business people, educators and students. Coverage includes economic, political and social reform issues, regional relations, and the impact of Western assistance programmes.

Distributed to some depository libraries in microfiche.

This timely book surveys political change in postcommunist Europe. It concentrates on the western periphery of the former Soviet empire and covers the countries of four regions: East Central Europe (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary); the Balkans (Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, the Third Yugoslavia, Macedonia, and Albania); the Baltic Rim (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia); and Eastern Europe (Belarus and Ukraine). The book charts the changes in each of these countries. It provides a brief overview of the history and communist legacy of each country, then reviews the new constitutional framework, the principal political parties and their orientation, the direction and scope of economic reform, and the foreign and security policies. Throughout, it evaluates the extent and direction of postcommunist transformation in each country and its prospects for becoming a viable member of the new European order. By its concentration on the actual elements of the emerging political systems and its currency, this is essential reading for students and scholars of Eastern Europe and contemporary international affairs. Patrons of public and school libraries will find it an important resource as well.