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Now in a fully updated edition, this essential text explores the other half of Europe—the new and future members of the European Union along with the problems and potential they bring to the region and to the world stage. Clear and comprehensive, it offers an authoritative and up-to-date analysis of the transformations and realities in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and Ukraine. Divided into two parts, the book presents a set of comparative country case studies as well as thematic chapters on key issues, including EU and NATO expansion, the economic transition and its social ramifications, the role of women, persistent problems of ethnicity and nationalism, and political reform. Leading scholars provide the historical context for the current situation of each country in the region. They explain how communism ended and how democratic politics has emerged or is struggling to emerge in its wake, how individual countries have transformed their economies, how their populations have been affected by rapid and wrenching change, and how foreign policy making has evolved. New to this edition are chapters on social issues and transitional justice. For students and specialists alike, this book will be an invaluable resource on the newly democratizing states of Europe. ; https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/faculty_books/1384/thumbnail.jpg

The Serbian Revolution of 2000, Georgian Rose Revolution of 2003, and Ukrainian Orange Revolution of 2004 are examined from the perspective of both the causes of popular engagement and the elite interaction. The authors argue that the model of Electoral Revolutions based on democracy promotion from outside and election fraud as a trigger for action does not fully explain either what brought people to the streets or why there was not a clear move to democratization in these cases. Instead, they show that corruption, failed administration, and state weakness were the triggers, that the opposition politicians were from the old administration, that people were repeating what they had done before in demonstrating, and that the mass movements did not result in the growth of civil society, increased popular engagement, or (on their own) significant democratization.

The media have always been major players in transitions
from authoritarian rule toward democracy. For all the dis-
cussion of the media as actors in these transitions and as the
objects of political tug-of-wars, little has actually been said
about how the media work or how they have been managed.
The Rational Politician is the first look at the media in the
East European transitions from communism to democracy.