ABSTRACT
Defining the region Central and Eastern Europe can be problematic. The region lacks clear geographical boundaries (Dingsdale 1999) and, while there is some consensus on its Western extent, there is less agreement regarding its Eastern borders. Consequently, a clear consensus on which countries are-and are not-included in the region is lacking. For the purposes of this chapter, we take Central and Eastern Europe to be composed of the following twenty states (see Figure 13.1): Albania; Belarus; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Bulgaria; Croatia; Czech Republic; Estonia; Hungary; Latvia; Lithuania; Macedonia (also known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia); Moldova; Montenegro; Poland; Romania; the Russian Federation; Serbia; Slovakia; Slovenia; and Ukraine. This region also includes the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Overall, Central and Eastern Europe covers an area of over 19.2 million square kilometers (7.4 million square miles) and is home to 328.95 million people (see Table 13.1). Within the region, a number of subregions are sometimes identified (see
Dingsdale 1999). “Central Europe” is used to describe those countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia) that historically and culturally have had the strongest ties with Western Europe (Croatia and Romania are also sometimes included in this group). The “Baltic States” is the term used to describe Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Southeast Europe includes Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia, and sometimes Croatia. It also includes Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in January 2008 but has yet to be accepted universally as a sovereign state. The term “Balkans” is sometimes used interchangeably with “Southeast Europe” (although Croatia and Romania reject the label). “Eastern Europe” is sometimes used for the former Soviet Republics of Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine (and we follow the UN definition in including the Russian Federation as part of Eastern Europe). Unless otherwise indicated, we use Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in this chapter to describe the region as a whole. Many of the states of CEE are relatively recent creations. Unlike Western
Europe, much of the region was long under the control of various feuding
F ig ur e 13 .1
