Hancock and Logue, along with their contributors, seek to explicate the achievements, problems, and prospects of simultaneous processes of economic and political transitions from communism to contrasting forms of market economies and democracy in Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and eastern Germany. Contributors include 14 American and European scholars with intimate professional and personal familiarity with the various case studies.

The contributors draw on process analysis and transition theory to explore different national approaches to privatization. This includes individual voucher schemes, the use of investment funds, the direct sale of former state owned enterprises, employee buy outs, direct foreign investments and their consequences for parallel processes of marketization and democratization. A quarter of the volume is devoted to comparative analyses of contrasting modes of privatization, the role of public opinion and law in the transition process, and the international economic and political context of postcommunist transformation. An important analysis for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with postcommunist economic and political change.