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With the collapse of the Soviet Union, a radical metamorphosis took place in Eastern Europe as major power structures were replaced by new systems of power and authority. With new power systems came new types of dominant elites. The New Elite in Post-Communist Eastern Europe identifies those elites who have gained control of the political, economic, cultural, and scientific institutions of the new state systems and examines the nature of power in the post-Communist world and the relationships between the old and new elite. This study of the new elite in Eastern Europe developed from a 1994 conference on the subject, attended by scholars, sociologists, representatives from major national and international government organizations, European state leaders, and those considered members of the new elite. Twenty-six of those participants have now contributed their experiences and their definitions of the new elite to this book, edited by Vladimir Shlapentokh, Christopher Vanderpool, and Boris Doktorov, resulting in a global intellectual effort to define the political and social processes of post-Communist society. The New Elite in Post-Communist Eastern Europe contains analysis from members of nearly every post-Soviet republic. Many contributors conducted direct sociological research on their respective issues, which along with polls and other data sources, developed a strong empirical base for the work. In addition to an introduction by Shlapentokh and Vanderpool, chapters appear under four main sections: "Post-Communist Elites: An Overview"; "Elites in Post-Soviet Republics"; "The Regional Elite in Russia"; and "Types of the Elite." Eastern Europe is a hotbed of unrest, revolution, and change. Understanding those who are in power is vital to understanding the countries in that region and their potential impact on global politics, economy, and society. The New Elite in Post-Communist Eastern Europe offers that understanding.
Changing configurations of national elites are shaping the prospects for democracy in the countries of postcommunist Eastern Europe. In several countries (Serbia, Bulgaria, Russia) there are unchecked power struggles between elites, with regimes oscillating between democratic and authoritarian tendencies. In other countries (Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic) restrained elite competitions are being institutionalized and are leading to stable democratic regimes. These and other outcomes are analyzed for the region as a whole.
International Relations Theory and the Politics of European Integration focuses on the roles of community, power and security, within the European Union.
"Who rules in Eastern Europe?" became a fundamental question for western researchers and other observers after communist regimes were established in the region, and it gained further importance as state socialism expanded into Central Europe after the Second World War. A political order which, according to Leninist theory of the state and to subsequent Stalinist political practice, was primarily a highly centralised and repressive power organisation, directed, as if it were natural, researchers attention towards the highest echelon of office holders in party and state. Extreme centralisation of power in these regimes was consequently linked to an elitist approach to analysing them from a distant viewpoint. It is one of the many paradoxes of state socialism, that a social and political order which presumptuously claimed to be the final destination of historical development and to be based on deterministic laws of social evolution, which claimed an egalitarian nature and denied the significance of the individual, was per ceived through the idiosyncrasies, rivalries and personal traits of its rulers. The largest part of these societies remained in grey obscurity, onlyoccasion ally revealing bits of valid information about a social life distant from the centres of power. It is debatable whether this top-headedness of western re search into communist societies created a completely distorted picture of re ality, however, it certainly contributed to an overestimation of the stability of these regimes, an underestimation of their factual diversity and a misjudge ment of the extent of conflicts and cleavages dividing them.
This work observes how the political ideologies, social values, and theoretical paradigms of Eastern European scholars and politicians changed throughout the period of transformation following the 1989 political revolutions in Eastern Europe. The authors try to reinterpret the institutions, movements, and ideologies that allegedly contributed to the erosion of the old regimes in Eastern Europe, asking whether these--alternative--legacies of communism support the transition to capitalism.
Explores class formation and elite struggles in post-communist Central Europe.
This investigation of the media in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, seeks to outline the legacies of communism confronting media reform, and how interaction between the media, state, society and market has led to the particular and unique dynamics in each case.
This text presents an analysis of the sources and general features of the current political and economic situation in the reforming countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and China.