| The Varieties of Transition: The East European and East Geman Experience Contributor(s): Offe, Claus (Author) |
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ISBN: 0745616097 ISBN-13: 9780745616094 Publisher: Polity Press OUR PRICE: $24.70 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: October 1996 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Political Science | Political Process - General - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social - Philosophy |
| Dewey: 320.947 |
| Series: East European and East German Experience |
| Physical Information: 0.54" H x 6" W x 9" (0.77 lbs) 264 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In recent years the countries of eastern Europe have been undergoing a process of rapid social and political transformation. This process has brought with it common problems experienced on different levels: economic crisis, growing social insecurity and injustice, ethnic conflicts and civil strife. In addition, post-communist societies have encountered political, legal and social difficulties in coming to term with their own past. In this book, Claus Offe provides a lucid and insightful account of this complex process of transformation. In a wide-ranging discussion he analyses the problems brought about by the creation of new political and economic orders in the countries of central and eastern Europe, and argues that the way forward is to build and consolidate a new democratic polity, a new economy, and a new conception of nationhood capable of absorbing ethnic conflict. He examines the comparatively straightforward - but nonetheless extremely rocky - 'special path' to capitalism followed by the former German Democratic Republic, and analyzes the effects which the collapse of communism has had on western democracies. Varieties of Transition will be welcomed by students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines including politics, sociology, European Studies, German Studies and modern history. |
