Transitions and Non-Transitions from Communism

Steven Saxonberg is Professor of Sociology at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. He has published over 50 articles in journals and books on the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the post-communist developments in this area. His first book The Fall: A Comparative Study of the End of Communism in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland (2001) was awarded second place in the UNESCO Stein Rokkan competition for best book in comparative social science.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Communist regime types; 3. Nationalism and patrimonial communism; 4. Ideology and opposition to communism; 5. Revolutionary potential and revolutionary outcomes; 6. Transitions without revolutions; 7. Non-transitions among maturing countries; 8. Non-transition and patrimonial communism; 9. What next?

'Looking at the wide range of surviving and collapsed communist regimes to compare their strengths and weaknesses, this very well-researched, thoughtful book achieves what none other has yet done so clearly and knowledgeably. It explains what generally went wrong, why some such regimes have survived, and it also makes some predictive suggestions that are very useful because they apply to other dictatorial ideological cases. This is a very welcome major addition to social science theory as well as being empirically very interesting and thorough.' Daniel Chirot, Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professor of International Studies, University of Washington