Exploring the controversies and problems surrounding post-communist transitions, this innovative volume brings together a distinguished group of political scientists, economists, historians, and sociologists. Within a strong theoretical framework, the book moves between general issues of transitology and specific analyses. Hungary, a state that has weathered political and economic transition more successfully than most, is used as the volume's case study for illuminating both comparative and regional issues. By bridging the divide between area studies and comparative politics, this book will be a key resource for advanced students and for scholars in East-European/post-communist studies, comparative politics, and international relations.

This guidebook is designed to help U.S. Army personnel more effectively use economic assistance to support economic and infrastructure development. It should help tactical commanders choose and implement more effective programs and projects in their areas of responsibility and better understand the economic context of their efforts. It also provides suggestions on what to and what not to do, with examples from current and past operations.

This report assesses the "Washington Consensus" on liberalizing markets in pursuit of sustained economic growth. In 1997, the "Asian Economic Miracle," thirty years of rapid growth and low inflation, ended abruptly with runs on Southeast Asian currencies and a massive flight of capital, precipitating deep economic recessions. Meanwhile, the countries of Southeast Europe had been struggling to reconstruct market economies out of the shreds left by socialist economies, their efforts complicated by civil strife or war.

Both regions had been urged by international organizations to adopt a package of policies, often called the Washington Consensus, of opening domestic markets, freeing trade, and opening domestic capital markets to free movements of international capital. Did the crisis in Southeast Asia, and related crises in Russia and Latin America, call into question that advice?

To address that question and study creation of sustained growth, the September 17-18 1998 conference at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars examined these two regions. Panels reviewed the roles of international institutions, central banks, and currency boards; fixing of exchange rates; opportunities and problems of foreign investment; U.S. policy and the international institutions; and financial globalization. Participants included officials from international financial institutions, national banks from the regions, and the United States, as well as economists, historians, and researchers.