Transforming Post-Communist Economies and Societies in Central Europe

Issues of Economic and Social Justice in Post-communist Central and Eastern Europe

Social Capability, History and the Economies of Communist and Post-Communist States

It has been shown, for non-Communist developed and developing countries, that earlier development of agriculture, a dense population, and a state-level polity is associated with a higher income and more rapid economic growth in the late 20 Century. We investigate whether this was also the case for countries under Communism and for the same countries in transition to a market economy. Our findin...

Notes and Comments Party System Volatility in Post-Communist Europe

In their 2014 article in the British Journal of Political Science, Eleanor Neff Powell and Joshua A. Tucker examine the determinants of party system volatility in post-communist Europe. Their central conclusion is that replacement volatility – volatility caused by new party entry and old party exit – is driven by long-term economic performance. This article shows that this conclusion is based e...

Electoral Systems and Party System Stability in Post-Communist Europe

This paper analyses the impact of electoral institutions on party system stability and change in twelve countries of post-communist Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. It argues that in the post-communist context it is necessary to break party system change down into two components: volatility and replacement. Volatility, a concept already well developed in the literature, refers to cha...

The intelligentsia in the constitution of civil societies and post-communist regimes in Hungary and Poland

The most prominent actor in the 1989 transformation of Eastern Europe has been the intelligentsia, a class whose basis for power is its control over a special form of teleological knowledge, and a culturally constituted group whose claim to authority is its historic role as leaders of East European nations. 2 In the wake of revolution they have in most places replaced the communist party and wo...