Catalogue

This handbook by a distinguished group of European specialists in comparative politics presents "in-depth analysis of the changing cleavage structures in the countries of Eastern Europe as well as hard facts about election results, government formation, electoral system and constitutional arrangements." Two introductory chapters are followed by profiles of electoral politics and public opinion in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, Slovenia, Rumania, and Bulgaria. Postcommunist Europe serves as a testing ground for the general model of social cleavages first proposed by Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan in Party Systems and Voter Alignments (1967). Despite its handy arrangement by country and its useful tables and indexes, this handbook probably belongs in circulating collections, since the data have little meaning outside the analytic context. For general reference purposes, an encyclopedia of Eastern Europe or Developments in Central and East European Politics 2, ed. by Stephen White, Judy Batt, and Paul G. Lewis (1998), would be more accessible. Graduate students and faculty. J. M. Alexander Carnegie Mellon University