ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the transition raises problems of institutional design, the rule of law, political culture, and the nature of social relationships more generally. It assesses the importance of direct democracy in the postcommunist context, arguing that it can help facilitate democratization. The book argues that democratic consolidation requires, at least in part, the democratization of political culture. It explores one of the most difficult cultural clashes of the postcommunist period: the uneasy joining of the two Germanies, and the discontents felt especially by East German intellectuals. The book looks explicitly at the tasks of modernization put onto the agenda by the collapse of communism in Azerbaijan. It also presents the corruption and its associated organized crime in the states of the former Soviet Union as a product of communism's 'a-modern' social system.
