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Das Buch analysiert die Lage der Demokratie in elf postkommunistischen EU-Mitgliedstaaten und in Ostdeutschland. Dreißig Jahre nach den friedlichen Revolutionen in Mittel- und Osteuropa gibt es Erfolge und Chancen, aber auch Fehlentwicklungen und Defizite, die im Kontext von europäischer Integration und Transformationsgeschichte untersucht und eingeordnet werden. Das Buch bietet allgemein interessierten Leser•innen einen strukturierten Überblick sowie vertiefte Kenntnisse zu den einzelnen Staaten und dem Sonderfall Ostdeutschland. Dieses Buch eröffnet interessante Vergleichsperspektiven und eine systematische Wissensbasis zur Demokratiequalität im postkommunistischen Raum. Gleichzeitig werden Motive, Abläufe und politische Ergebnisse der EU-Osterweiterung im Zusammenhang dargestellt und die noch zu lösenden Aufgaben beschrieben.

More than 25 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, European integration remains a work in progress, especially in those Eastern European nations most dramatically reshaped by democratization and economic liberalization. This volume assembles detailed, empirically grounded studies of eleven states—Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and the former East Germany—that went on to join the European Union. Each chapter analyzes the political, economic, and social transformations that have taken place in these nations, using a comparative approach to identify structural similarities and assess outcomes relative to one another as well as the rest of the EU.

1989 – what a fateful year! In the autumn of 1989 Czech and German history touched each other in a very special way. Tens of thousands of East German citizens fled to freedom through Prague. The very existence of the East German regime was undermined by mass exodus, the closing of borders and civil unrest. Finally, the Berlin Wall fell. But even prior to this, events around the West German embassy in Prague and the mass protests in East Germany gave Czechs and Slovaks the decisive impetus to shake off their own regime. Almost at the same time as the East German regime, the communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia collapsed.Karel Vodička meticulously reconstructs the events in West and East Germany and in the CSSR during those turbulent weeks that ultimately led to the collapse of two communist regimes. He thereby makes use of sources of East and West German as well as Czechoslovakian origin, which provides completely new insights into the ambivalent relations between Prague and East Berlin in the last months of their rule.

In the post-Communist countries of the EU a number of structural parameters have survived the transition that distinguish them from the other, more established democracies of the European Union – as well as from the other nations of the former Eastern Bloc. The authors of this volume address these differences and analyse the political, economic and social transformation processes that took place or are still taking place in this region. It becomes clear what role politics, the economy and society in general now play in these countries, where deficits are still prominent, and what the future holds.