Social Research articles from June 1996

Social Research archives from June 1996

The meanings of 1989.(Central and Eastern Europe: Gains and Losses in the Transition to Democracy)
June 22, 1996... History, as an entirety, could exist only in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God (Camus, 1956, p. 189). The historicist does not recognize that it is we who select and...

Civil society endangered.(Central and Eastern Europe: Gains and Losses in the Transition to Democracy)
June 22, 1996... Post-Communist Political Behavior In the first decade after the Berlin Wall fell, mass political behavior in Europe's eastern half exhibited discomfiting characteristics. Low turnouts have plagued many electoral contests in Hungary, the...

The world they have lost: an assessment of change in Eastern Europe.(Central and Eastern Europe: Gains and Losses in the Transition to Democracy)
June 22, 1996... Introduction Since 1989 the analysis of political and economic transitions has become something of an academic cottage industry.(1) This essay does not offer yet another paradigmatic explanation of what did or will happen in Eastern...

The Russian transition in comparative and Russian perspective.(Central and Eastern Europe: Gains and Losses in the Transition to Democracy)
June 22, 1996... IT is easier to characterize what Russia has been in transition from than what it is in transition to. The Russian movement away from a Communist system began in the second half of the 1980s. Some of the groundwork for change was laid in...

The bitter taste of success: reflections on the intelligentsia in post-soviet Russia.(Central and Eastern Europe: Gains and Losses in the Transition to Democracy)
June 22, 1996... When the society is sick, the cream of the crop becomes its scum. Literaturnaya Gazeta, 4, 17, 1996 SPRING 1996 may not be the optimal time to assess the gains and losses of the transition to democracy in Russia. Posed in these terms, the...

Revolutionary spectacle and peaceful transition. (Poland)(Central and Eastern Europe: Gains and Losses in the Transition to Democracy)
June 22, 1996... Introduction The revolutions of 1989 are called conservative or liberal. They are referred to as imitative--with their look fixed on the West--or restorative--fascinated by the past. Some see the traces of the "third road" in them or...

Beyond gains and losses: in search of "winning losers". (Poland)(Central and Eastern Europe: Gains and Losses in the Transition to Democracy)
June 22, 1996... Introduction: The Principal Idea My intention in writing this paper is not so much an empirical demonstration of the gains and losses produced by transformational changes, but rather a consideration of the sense of such division. I want...

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome in social science in Eastern Europe.(Central and Eastern Europe: Gains and Losses in the Transition to Democracy)
June 22, 1996... Illusion Lost Following the rapid and unexpected collapse of state-socialist systems throughout Eastern Europe, both observers and actors believed that agents of modernity, such as parliamentary democracy, constitutional courts,...

Did the losers really win? An analysis of electoral behavior in Hungary in 1994.(Central and Eastern Europe: Gains and Losses in the Transition to Democracy)
June 22, 1996... The euphoria following the fall of the European communist regimes was slowly replaced by skepticism and a growing sense of disillusionment in the four years following the first free elections. As a consequence of the eruption of militant...

What did we lose after 1989? (Czech Republic)(Central and Eastern Europe: Gains and Losses in the Transition to Democracy)
June 22, 1996... WHAT did we lose and gain after the 1989 upheaval? A short answer sounds rather paradoxical. We gained something that we do not regard as valuable anymore, and we lost something we did not hold in high esteem at that time, something that was...

Bulgaria: could we regain what we already lost?(Central and Eastern Europe: Gains and Losses in the Transition to Democracy)
June 22, 1996... That which has been, it is that which shall be; and that which has been done is that which shall be done; and there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Nostalgia: The Elusive Rediscovery of the Past THOUGH five years seems...

Post-totalitarian pathology: notes on Romania six years after December 1989.(Central and Eastern Europe: Gains and Losses in the Transition to Democracy)
June 22, 1996... THE countries that parted from totalitarianism are, on the whole, convalescent countries with different rhythms of recovery, depending on the acuteness of the sickness they suffered from and the vitality of their intimate tissues. What can be...

Friendly prodding and other sources of change in Cuba.(Central and Eastern Europe: Gains and Losses in the Transition to Democracy)
June 22, 1996... The post-1989 collapse of communism in Eastern Europe led many observers to believe that a comparably rapid transition to democracy and economic liberalization was imminent in Cuba. After the onset of a crisis brought the Cuban economy down by at...