ABSTRACT
Reagan came to power in 1978, Thatcher in 1979. In the period since then the states of the expanding European Union and those of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have all undergone major transitions. With the introduction of the common currency for eleven EU members in 1999 and with the planned expansion of the Union to the east and to the south (accession negotiations are currently proceeding with Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Cyprus), along with new accessions to NATO (Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined in 1999), a further period of social and political turbulence is likely. At the same time international capital has never been more footloose. The investment and disinvestment decisions of trans-national corporations are of major importance to the economic prosperity of all European states and to the political stability of many. Meanwhile the latest tranche of information and communications technology (ICT) developments is transforming all modes of production, distribution and consumption. The European countries are in the midst of profound and by no means completed transitions (see many of the chapters in Coulby, Cowen, and Jones (2000).
