Political scientists have documented significant variation in political and economic outcomes of the 1989–91 revolutions. Countries bordering on western Europe have become relatively democratic and economically successful, with both democracy and wealth dropping off as one moves east and south. Explanations for this variation and the replication of an older pattern on the Eurasian landmass have...

Should Marxists support universal basic income (UBI), i.e., a regular cash paid to all without means test or work requirement? This paper considers one important argument that they should, namely UBI would be instrumentally effective in helping bring about communism. It argues previous answers this question have insufficient attention logically prior question: what is Marx’s account of communis...

Following the collapse of communism, all countries in Eastern Europe and Eurasia have experienced dramatic changes in family formation. Some common patterns include delays and/or declines in marriage and fertility, increasing rates of non-marital cohabitation and nonmarital childbearing, and, in many countries, rising rates of divorce. Not all of these trends have exhibited the same pattern in ...

One of the most distinctive features of new democracies is the presence of political parties associated with the old, repressive regime. This article investigates whether or not the Eastern European variant of these parties, which we call communist successor parties (CSPs), has affected coalition politics. It finds that CSPs do have significant effects on the dynamics of coalition formation. CS...

Using data from the first round of the national Gender and Generations Surveys of Russia, Romania, and Bulgaria, and from a similar survey of Hungary, which were all collected in recent years, we study rates of entry into marital and non-marital unions. We have used elements from the narrative of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) as a vehicle to give our analysis of the data from the four...

Supply chains have been proposed as complex adaptive systems. This paper looks at the global aluminum supply chain network in those terms. Developments in this industry have included formation of a cartel by bauxite producing countries, emergence of Australia as a leading producer, the collapse of communism in Europe, and the rise of Chinese production in all phases of primary aluminum producti...