ABSTRACT
The collapse of communism two and a half decades ago marked the end of the Cold War and the bipolar division of the world, the momentum of globalization and the information revolution—political, economic, and technological processes that would fundamentally change the world. At the same time, it was the beginning of a period that would be marked by democratization of the post-communist societies of Central and Eastern Europe and the European integration process (Schwartzman, 1998; Tilly, 1999; Diamond, 1999; Huntington, 1991; Linz and Stepan, 1996; Fukuyama, 1989; Grugel, 2002).
