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As Europe underwent extraordinary changes in 1989-1990, the continent's south-eastern region - the Balkans - began once again to draw attention for its ethnic rivalries, its political turmoil and its interstate disputes. Continuing tensions and instability have fostered images of a Balkan imbroglio where regional instability could affect all of Europe. This study offers country-specific and comparative assessments of political trends during this transitional era, placing emphasis on matters of international security, socioeconomic policy and political leadership. Also considered are the requisite conditions for democracy in the role of the military in a civil society, and the manner in which security can be achieved without overarching, hegemonic alliances.

In the wake of Ceausescu's tyrannical regime, the world is watching closely as Romania struggles to assert a new democratic vision. This volume combines the perspectives of US scholars and Romanians to provide an assessment of the Romanian question. After analyzing the revolution itself and the burdens left by the Ceausescu regime, the book then considers the prospects for a successful transition toward democracy, given the strong barriers to structural and political change. Several contributors grapple with the issues of society, economy and foreign policy, posing questions such as: how will the Romanian people reconcile themselves to a more open political system?; what will the future economic landscape look like?; and how will Romania's role in Europe and world change? The book concludes with essays by Romanians active in the political scene who offer insights into the heart of the country's most serious dilemmas.

How do alliances, in the aggregate, "behave"? What explains the actions and performance of alliances? Within alliances, how do members' actions and performance vary, and what explains that variance? This book addresses these questions with respect to one of the world's principal alliances of the late twentieth century, the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO), also known as the Warsaw Pact. The author argues that though we understand a great deal about the military hardware of the Warsaw Pact, little is known about its reliability, cohesiveness, and the distribution of military burden within it--all key variables, he argues, in influencing change in alliance behavior. In each chapter he offers a new way to measure one of these variables and suggests possible explanations for variance. In addition, he examines the effect East-West relations have on cohesion and how Warsaw Pact allies have distributed the defense effort in the past. A concluding chapter is devoted to an empirical assessment of Warsaw Pact alliance behavior, combining indicators of cohesion, reliability, and burden-sharing in a general portrait of the WTO as a collective actor in international politics.

There are many reasons why it is important to study local politics -- political culture, government, political process -- in Communist party states. As in all politics, local politics in Communist party states are the political articulation of the local community. This is the political arena where policies concerning local issues are formulated by the officials. This is where the officials are approached by citizens with their particular demands. This is where citizens articulate their preferences, aspirations, and values through political participation. And this is where officials, both elect

There are many reasons why it is important to study local politics -- political culture, government, political process -- in Communist party states. As in all politics, local politics in Communist party states are the political articulation of the local community. This is the political arena where policies concerning local issues are formulated by the officials. This is where the officials are approached by citizens with their particular demands. This is where citizens articulate their preferences, aspirations, and values through political participation. And this is where officials, both elect

How are language, identity and war related? This exploratory essay probes the conceptual and logical connections among these three elemental factors of human existence, offers thoughts about an alternative discourse, and takes a look at suggestive data regarding the tie between violence and identity. I posit that who we are, what we say and when we fight are inseparable from one another. In this argumentative essay, language is seen as forming a nucleus of identity, identity as being forged in conflict, and discourse marking our path to, through and out of war and peace. Abating identity threats through identity-affirming discourse may, I conclude, be the best and most lasting tool towards peace.