Transforming external regimes has proven to be one of the most problematic aspects of the economic transition in the former Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) countries. These difficulties result both from internal factors such as the all too frequent failure of macroeconomic stabilization programs and from external factors such as the collapse of Soviet-era multinational integration mechanisms. This paper analyzes how, at the macroeconomic level, large declines in regional trade flows during 1990-93 have reinforced the macroeconomic perturbations buffeting the post-Communist economies, while at the microeconomic level, difficulties encountered in sustaining trade liberalization and making currencies more convertible have weakened demonopolizing tendencies and hurt prospects for integration into the international economy. more

After two and a half months of NATO bombing, fighting between the Yugoslav Army and the KLA, and the exodus of half of the Kosovo Albanian population, the war has ended. Though both sides were claiming victory there was little to celebrate except that the killing and destruction were stopped. The agreement reached amounts to a truce, while no political settlement is in sight. Did diplomacy fail in Paris as well as the formidable military power of NATO in the field or is this a crisis which cannot be resolved by any means? more

Fidelity to traditional values has generated a peculiar approach to politics as such throughout Eastern Europe. The author found in Poland that the criteria people used to judge political excellence, or political leadership, had little to do with programs and performance, and almost everything to do with morals and ethics. Poles tended to judge leaders not by whether they were or were likely to be effective at moving the country in a given direction, but by whether they were good or bad men: decent or indecent, strong or weak, kind or brutal, loyal or disloyal. The author's conclusion was that this moralization of politics made swinstwo--swinishness--the primary category for political condemnation. This paper then analyzes this phenomenon throughout the region as a whole. more

September 1998 - Because of the press coverage and the policy interest both here and in Europe, a fundamental question arises over why the US--and the international community--should be concerned with Kosovo. The answer has two levels. The first is the issue of the violation of the Kosovar Albanians' human rights within their own country, although suffering and human rights violations are not unique to Kosovo. The second is the issue of Balkan stability in which the United States and Europe--including NATO--have a stated interest. The threat of spillover violence to an already unstable Albania and the precarious democracy in Macedonia (FYROM) is great. Spillover violence could have an impact on the Dayton peace process--here the United States has committed substantial resources including 6,900 troops--and potentially across the broader Balkan region, which might lead to a collapse of the former Yugoslavia and embroil Greece and Turkey. more