Transition, globalisation and living laboratories

At the end of the second millennium an extensive social engineering experiment was conducted in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia in the countries emerging from socialist systems that are commonly known today under the label in transition or post-socialist countries. These countries, which share a totalitarian communist past, are facing similar issues of political, economic and social transformation as they deal with such processes as privatisation, political democratisation and globalisation. The consequences of globalisation have not bypassed these societies in transition; on the contrary, they are extremely deep, including in the area of equal rights for women.