ABSTRACT

The majority of post-communist states are new states, formed as a result of the collapse of all three of the multi-national communist federal states, the USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. In contrast to previous examples of the breakdown of authoritarian rule and the transition to democracy (in, for example, southern Europe and Latin America), the post-communist transitions appear to expose the state itself to the most profound challenge. As Claus Offe has pointed out:

‘At the most fundamental level a “decision” must be made as to who “we” are, i.e., a decision on identity, citizenship and the territorial as well as social and cultural boundaries of the state.’1