The closing years of the 20th century will be remembered as a time of tumultuous change. The various essays are attempts to understand the changes and ground them in the context of the logic of the contemporary world-system. The essays are divided into two main themes: structural transformations and regional ramifications of global transformations. East Asia, the Pacific Rim, European periphery, and the Middle East are all examined to determine if fundamental changes are occuring. Scholars and upper level and graduate students of economic history, developmental economics, regional economics, international economics, and political economy will find provocative contrasts and insights in this collection of essays, presented at the 18th annual Political Economy of the World-System Conference.

The book opens with an account of recent developments in the economic, political and cultural sociology of international tourism and goes on to analyse the relationships between international tourism and the broad economic determinants of the world system. The book aims to understand "leisure migration" in two principal contexts: the socio-economic hierarchies of society, and the legacy of east-west political alliances. This novel theoretical synthesis combines data at the global, continental, and regional levels of tourism, focusing particularly on Austria and Hungary - one of the most exciting areas of Europe - where the social, political, cultural and economic boundaries of the emerging European integration are being contested and redrawn today.

In adopting an eclectic research strategy, including historical narrative, content analysis, linguistic history, statistical modelling, and fieldwork observation, the book breaks new ground with regard to the empirical material it covers, and is a timely and relevant contribution to the advancement of this debate.

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This distinctive book presents valuable new research on the political and economic elites that have emerged in Central and Eastern Europe since the demise of state socialism. Integrating theoretically informed analysis with fresh empirical data, the contributors significantly enhance our understanding of the evolution and interplay of elites in the post-communist period. Leading experts explore the elite circulations, differentiations, and competitions that now underpin but in some countries also still inhibit democratic stability and economic growth. A provocative concluding chapter assesses the century-long confrontation between elite theory and Marxism and where they stand today, after state socialismOs collapse.

The closing years of the 20th century will be remembered as a time of tumultuous change. The various essays are attempts to understand the changes and ground them in the context of the logic of the contemporary world-system. The essays are divided into two main themes: structural transformations and regional ramifications of global transformations. East Asia, the Pacific Rim, European periphery, and the Middle East are all examined to determine if fundamental changes are occuring. Scholars and upper level and graduate students of economic history, developmental economics, regional economics, international economics, and political economy will find provocative contrasts and insights in this collection of essays, presented at the 18th annual "Political Economy of the World-System Conference."