The Transition Evaluating the Postcommunist Experience Routledge Revivals Series

This title was first published in 2002. This useful collection brings together scholars from diverse standpoints to examine the transition from Communism a decade after it began. The result is a book that illuminates the changes, and particularly the problems, that have accompanied attempts to introduce representative democracy and a viable market economy into formerly Communist states. Specialist chapters on the Former Soviet Union, Russia, Poland, Azerbaijan and the former East Germany, institutional accounts of postcommunist states and conceptual chapters result in this volume being ideally suited to university courses, policy makers and NGOs that have an interest in transition countries.

Contents: Introduction: Making sense of the transition from communism, David W. Lovell; Democratization and the development of civil society, David W. Lovell; State-transformation and postcommunist democratization, Ulrika Jerre; Direct democracy in postcommunist states: institutions and experiences since 1989, Michael Bützer; Corruption, trust, and the danger to democratization in the former Soviet Union, Donald Bowser; Political culture in contemporary Russia: trapped between glory and guilt, Andreas Langenohl; Between two historic models of modernization: the case of Azerbaijan, Etibar Najafov; Building capitalism in Poland: some paradoxes, Maria Nawojczyk; German democracy and its East German discontents, Uta L. Schaub; Conclusion: The transition as a return to Europe, David W. Lovell and Heinz-Uwe Haus; Index.

David W. Lovell