Democracy and enlargement in post-Communist Europe. The democratisation of the general public in fifteen Central and Eastern European countries, 1991-1998

Book abstract:

This work endeavours to explain the political transformations that have swept Central and Eastern Europe during the 1990s, acknowledged to be the 'third wave of democratisation' which had its beginnings in 1974 in Spain and Portugal. The tide that flowed through Eastern Europe was different in so far as it carried with it a wholesale change in economic planning, away from the planned command economy of communist societies towards a free market economy.

This work concentrates on the first process of democratisation; the behaviour and attitudes of post-Communist citizens in the new political regimes and their relationship to democracy. It uses comparative and empirical data from Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, the Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Ukraine. The book tests the attitudes of the citizens to a wide range of issues, such as European identity of post-Communist citizens, military integration into NATO and international security issues, and the birth of democracy and birth of the market economy.

The book will interest students, academics and researchers interested in the European Union, European identity, comparative politics, democracy and the Communist legacy.

Christian W. Haerpfer is Director of the Centre for Strategic Development at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna and teaches Political Science at the University of Vienna.