This paper provides what we believe to be the first collection of data on social capital in the transition countries of central/eastern Europe and of the former Soviet Union. Using data from the World Values Survey 1990 and 1995 we document the degree of trust and of civic participation and find...

This paper considers the creation of a new region in Europe since the opening of the borders following the so-called "revolutions" in East-Central Europe. The "buffer zone" consists of a privileged group of post-Communist countries sandwiched between some of the most affluent countries of the...

This article uses Andreas Wimmer’s model of ethnic boundary making to examine ethnic boundaries among the Russian-speaking minorities in Lithuania and Latvia, two countries with contrasting integration policies. We argue that the exclusive inte-gration policies of Latvia, particularly with...

In The Decent Society: planning for social quality (Abbott et al 2016) we developed the ‘Decent Society Model’ (DSM), on the shoulders of the ‘Social Quality’ approach (Beck et al 1997, 2001; Van der Maesen and Walker 2012) as a way of understanding, measuring and advising about the extent...

The paper considers the 'embeddedness' of economic activities in the work of small-scale cross-border traders between the Central European 'buffer zone' countries of Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia and the countries further East. Shuttle trading has become a significant feature of...

This paper considers one aspect of social transitions in post-Communist Eastern Europe: that of attitudes to economic change. Although much has been written about economic and political transformation, little has been done in a systematic way with regard to the attitudes of the population to...