Of all the scholarly work on the countryside done in pre-1917 Russia and in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, that of L.N. Kritsman and those influenced by him - the so-called 'Agrarian Marxists' - is perhaps the least well known. However, that work was of extremely high quality and very original. Its significance is more than historical, since it has great relevance to the study of peasantries in contemporary poor countries - especially to the analysis of peasant differentiation. This volume, first published in 1984, has been prepared by two specialists who have been working on Kritsman and the.
"Since the collapse of communist party rule in central and eastern Europe, there have been attempts in most countries of the region to develop more market-orientated economies and more democratic multi-party political structures. The precise forms of and degrees of success of these changes have varied widely, and all the successor regimes have faced serious problems, but on most counts Hungary has emerged as one of the most stable and successful transformations so far. Building on its distinctive experience under communist rule, with a gradual limitation of the degree of state management of the economy since the 1970s, and limited moves towards greater political pluralism in the late 1980s, Hungary has achieved a peaceful and orderly political transition since 1990. Although its political institutions have come under some strain, and constitutional issues are the subject of debate between the parties, Hungary has successfully established multi-party elections and a parliamentary system, a relatively clearly defined division of responsibilities between parliament, president and constitutional court, and significant freedom of expression in the media."--BOOK JACKET. "The aim of this book is to review various aspects of the process of democratic transition in Hungary over the period of its first post-communist, freely elected parliament between 1990 and 1994. In the various contributions to this book an attempt is made to put them into the context of longer-term trends in Hungarian politics. Hungary offers both an example of the problems of political change common to much of eastern Europe, and a specific example of what has so far been a relatively successful transformation. The articles in this collection are the result of common discussions and in some cases collaborative work between colleagues in Britain and Hungary, and in particular at the Department of Government, University of Strathclyde, and at the Department of Political Sciences, Budapest University of Economic Sciences."--Jacket
The paper seeks to contribute to the debate on the political strength or weakness of civil society in Eastern Europe by focusing directly on relations between social actors and policy-makers in the broader context of the post-communist political settlement in Hungary. Drawing on concepts from the literature on polity and governance, the paper takes the example on social policy-making in Hungary in the late 1990s and early 2000s to explore the complex relations between civil society organisations and policy-makers in successive governments' attempts to legislate on hospital privatisation. Adapted from the source document.
