Dilemmas of transition: The environment, democracy and economic reform in East Central Europe ‐ an introduction

The Empirical FocusThis collection of essays* is concerned with the impact of the twin processes of democratisation and marketisation on the environment in a number of countries from the former Soviet bloc.There are three environmental matters which we investigated: how the twin processes of change have effected (1) the physical environment; (2) the expression of environmental interests; and (3) the effectiveness of environmental management policies.We began with a search for a common term to refer to the countries under study.'Eastern Europe' was a term once in common use to refer to European countries under Soviet-dominated Communist regimes.However, as Tellegen [1996] has pointed out, it now seems odd to refer to the very small part of Europe that lies west of the former Iron Curtain as 'Western Europe' and to use the term 'Eastern Europe' to refer to the immense area between Germany and Asian Russia.We accept Tellegen's point that clearly there is need to differentiate.Furthermore, we believe that the term Eastern Europe is too associated with the period of Soviet rule to be useful for discussion of the processes of change these countries are undergoing in the period of post-Communist transition.In keeping with the current trend, we have adopted the term East Central Europe (ECE) to refer to the countries under study here.The countries that comprise ECE are Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, the former East Germany, Albania and the former Yugoslavia (now broken into Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and the rump of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro).The Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are excluded from this category, on the grounds that they were part of the USSR itself and had * This volume is divided into two parts.Part I explores the framework within which environmental policy in ECE countries is situated.Part II presents a number of country studies.* References to contributions in this volume appear within parentheses.