A comprehensive introduction to the important economic, social and political processes and development issues in this increasingly popular area of study. Employing a groundbreaking thematic approach the book centres its discussion on the interrelation between contemporary development theories and continuing transition issues in this huge and complex region.

A study of East Central Europe and its place in the modern world. Combining narrative with analysis, it presents the past and present of East Central Europe in the larger context of the political and economic history of the continent.

Since 1898, the former communist countries of Eastern Europe have gained international prominence. The continuing socio-economic transition and the instability evident in areas like the Caucasus and Former Yugoslavia have drawn the western world into uneasy interactions with the region. At the same time, closer commercial and cultural contacts are providing opportunities for rewarding relationships which have now resulted in many of these countries joining the EU. This book provides detailed coverage of the transition from communism to a market economy. Covering the whole range of East Central European and former Soviet Union countries, it charts the diversity within the region, offering in-depth coverage of specific areas as well as a broad view of development across the region. The book is organised into three comprehensive sections: the historical, socio-economic and environmental. The socio-economic section considers the critical issues of restructuring to effect the transition from central planning to a market economy, while the historical material provides an essential context for the constraints and opportunities affecting the region. The environmental section places emphasis on results of environmental neglect inherited from communism as well as looking to the future implications of EU directives on the problems of biodiversity and pollution in the region.

Eastern and Western Europe continue to change in their relationship to one another and in their ongoing dynamic with the post-Soviet states. Economic development, electoral upheaval, and the Bosnian crisis all color the transition from communism to democracy and from a Cold War outlook to a new global order still taking shape.In this fully revised and updated edition of his popular and critically acclaimed text, David Mason brings the revolutionary events of 1989 into context with the transitional yet turbulent 1990s. We see new parties, new politics, new constitutions, and new opportunities in light of economic shock therapies, ?left turns? in recent elections, and dissolving sovereignties and alliances. Despite savage ethnic conflict, economic scarcity, and political insecurity, Mason shows us that East-Central Europe is consolidating and reemerging as a region to be reckoned with on the global stage.

The year 1989 marked a turning point in world history, a watershed year of unprecedented drama and political significance. No matter how one looks at those events–as the fall of communism, the democratization of Eastern Europe, or the end of the cold war–it is important to understand how the world travelled the distance of time, space, and ideology to arrive at the Berlin Wall and tear it down. David Mason provides that understanding in a concise synthesis of history, politics, economics, sociology, literature, philosophy, and popular, as well as traditional, culture. He shows how all these elements combined to yield the year that effectively closed the twentieth century–and promised to launch the new century on a hopeful note. Starting with Poland's elections in June 1989, the countries of then-communist Eastern Europe one by one revolutionized their governments and their polities; Hungary opened its borders to the West, East Germany rushed through, Czechoslovakia elected Vaclav Havel president, Bulgaria changed both party and leadership, and Romania executed Ceausescu. Although Gorbachev enabled many of these changes, he did not cause them. The illumination of the complex symbiosis between dynamics in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union is one of the greatest contributions this book makes. With undercurrents emphasizing the power of ideas, the spirit of youth, and the multifaceted force of culture and ethnicity, Mason takes the reader far beyond the events of change and into their impetus and outcomes. He applies theories of social movements, democratization, and economic transition with an even hand, showing the interaction of their effects not only regionally but worldwide. The concluding chapter puts the revolutions in Eastern Europe into international perspective and highlights their impact on East-West relations, security alliances, and economic integration. Mason discusses the European Community, the United States and the Soviet Union, and the Third World in relation to the new East-Central European configuration. Using delightful and provocative cartoons from Eastern European and Soviet presses, interesting photos, valuable tables of data, and illuminating figures, Mason emphasizes important points about the role of nationalism, ethnicity, public opinion, and harsh economic reality in the revolutionary process.

Changes in East-Central Europe have been happening rapidly. This volume brings together recent research about the impact of transition and social policy responses to it. Problems tackled include unemployment, health care, child care policy, labour migration, and the role of the informal economy.

There are over thirty million disabled people in Russia and Eastern Europe, yet their voices are rarely heard in scholarly studies of life and well-being in the region. This book brings together new research by internationally recognised local and non-native scholars in a range of countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It covers, historically, the origins of legacies that continue to affect well-being and policy in the region today. Discussions of disability in culture and society highlight the broader conditions in which disabled people must build their identities and well-being whilst in-depth biographical profiles outline what living with disabilities in the region is like. Chapters on policy interventions, including international influences, examine recent reforms and the difficulties of implementing inclusive, community-based care. The book will be of interest both to regional specialists, for whom well-being, equality and human rights are crucial concerns, and to scholars of disability and social policy internationally.

This volume examines the role of identity formation and stages of sequencing of the steps of reconciliation - which is an enduring rather than ad an ad hoc phenomenon. RIPAR 4 asks for both the challenges to it from the domestic and international systems and the actors involved, as well as for the role of history, memory and remembrance either as catalysts for or obstacles to reconciliation. The analyzing of the connection among the past, the present and the future in actual or prospective reconciliation embraces all these topics and questions.Influenced by the crisis in the former Sovjet Union following the March 2014 Russian annexation/integration of Crimea and the movement of Russian soldiers into Eastern Ukraine to aid Ukrainian separatists the essays in this volume were written in 2015. Reconciliation is a frequently ill-defined term. As an aspiration in this volume it encompasses three senses: an incipient, thin and minimal form amounting to passive, peaceful coexistence after enmity; a more elaborate, intermediate and engaged form that is captured by the term rapprochement; and a thick or fuller form denoting active friendship, empathy, trust, magnanimity and, ultimately, amity. Beyond the definitional goal, the volume addresses ten themes. Firstly, reconciliation is being questioned as a process and/ or a terminal condition. A view is made on the requirements for the transition from conflict to a reconciliatory process, and the obstacles to beginning a process of reconciliation. Its soft and hard expressions inter alia in emotional and political dimensions are also subject of the author's interest. The observations about conflict and cooperation offered in this volume wish to add significantly to the burgeoning literature of reconciliation. These essays demonstrate that we need a variety of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives to grapple with conflict and to promote reconciliation.