This book tackles different aspects of the adaptive and transformative process in communist and post-communist systems in Eastern Europe, offering competing models, which locate the explanatory variable in different places and account for the unfolding of change in different ways.

1. Processes of Decay, Engines of Transformation: An Introduction 2. The Rise of Public Legitimation in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe 3. German Economic and Monetary Union: Transition to a Market Economy 4. Socialism and Underdevelopment 5. Hegemony, Class, and State Socialism: Toward a Theoretical Approach to Cultural Change, with Application to the Chinese Case 6. Adaptation and Transformation of Religious Policy in Communist and Post-Communist Systems 7. Revitalization Processes in Post-Communist Eastern Europe: Religion as Active Participant in Political Transformation 8. The Press of Change: Mass Communications in Late Communist and Post-Communist Societies 9. Rising Above the Past: The Struggle for Liberal Democracy in Eastern Europe 10. When Systems Collapse: Toward a Theory About the Relationship Between System Decay and Civil Strife