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The increasing speed of societal, environmental, technological, and workplace changes brings into sharper focus the question of how people shape and learn from transitions, such as so-called 'skilled migration'. Taking a doing transitions and doing migration perspective, I assert that transitions and migration do not simply exist but are constituted relationally through social practices and accompanied by learning processes. This paper reports findings from qualitative research into the question of how people learn and transform their understandings of (life)time when moving to a new country and seeking entry into the labour market. The study used the documentary method to analyse data from 20 biographical-narrative interviews with people who moved to Canada as adults. Findings indicate different modes of dealing with shifts in temporal contexts during migration as decompressing lifetime, losing time, and going with the flow. These modes are associated with positive transformative learning, negative transformative learning, and learning through participation in practices. This study has implications for theorising learning during life course transitions as a socially embedded process. It also points to the need for differentiated support as individuals seek to enter new labour markets or make career changes in the context of migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Party system institutionalization (PSI) is regarded as a critical underpinning of democracies, but its role in non‐democratic systems has been understudied. In this paper, we evaluate whether the concept has meaningful and perhaps unique implications for the durability of competitive authoritarian regimes. We argue that a modified version of electoral volatility – the most common measure of PSI in democracies – conveys useful information about PSI in competitive authoritarian contexts by signalling the ability of the ruling party to manage the opposition. To this end, we construct an original data set that disaggregates electoral volatility into ruling party seat change and opposition party seat volatility and further divides opposition party volatility into Type‐A and Type‐B volatility. We find robust results that democratization becomes more likely when decreases in the ruling party's seat share coincide with an increase in opposition party Type‐B volatility. This paper demonstrates that the concept of PSI has utility for understanding regime dynamics in competitive authoritarian contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass mobilization (MM) is an important driver of political change. While some citizens organize in favor of more democratic institutions, others take to the streets to support an authoritarian status quo. This article introduces measures of pro-democratic and pro-autocratic MM using expert assessments for 179 polities from 1900–2021. The data allow us to trace patterns in MM over time, across regions and regime types. We use this new data to systematically analyze the relationship between both types of mobilization and regime change. We confirm the findings of the literature on contentious democratic politics, and our analysis of autocratic mobilization allows us to make sense of the controversy in the literature on "bad actors" in civil society. We show that MM in favor of autocracy negatively affects democracy, making a case for specifying the goals of the actors involved in contentious politics to more precisely understand their impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The solute drag effect of phosphorus (P) in the single-phase austenite (γ-Fe) region was studied under isothermal annealing conditions at temperatures of 1050 °C, 1150 °C, 1250 °C and 1350 °C. High-temperature laser scanning confocal microscopy (HT-LSCM) was used to observe and quantify in situ grain growth on the surface of three different samples containing 0.026 wt.-% P, 0.044 wt.-% P and 0.102 wt.-% P. The dependence of the arithmetic mean grain sizes on time and temperature were modeled mathematically using a simple ordinary differential equation (ODE) according to normal grain growth (NGG) theory. As no other major effects, i.e., Zener-pinning by precipitates, occurred under the selected experimental conditions, grain growth interference was only considered by grain boundary (GB) segregation of P. Thus, the total grain boundary mobility (M) was directly determined depending on the P content and isothermal annealing temperature. The fitted GB mobility values enabled the determination of an average binding energy value between impurity P atoms and grain boundaries (E 0 = -1.1 - -0.6 eV) in the system. Finally, the GB segregation of P in γ-Fe was derived from the observed grain growth kinetics. The results showed reasonable agreement with calculations using segregation enthalpies from the literature. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) will come into effect in January 2022. Among other things, The Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock (SEPSIS‑3 definition) will be implemented in it. This defines sepsis as a "life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection". The aim of the present secondary analysis of a survey on the topic of "sepsis-induced coagulopathy" was to evaluate whether the SEPSIS‑3 definition, 4 years after its international introduction, has arrived in everyday clinical practice of intensive care units (ICU) run by anesthesiologists in Germany and thus the requirements for its use of the ICD-11 are given.Methods: Between October 2019 and May 2020, we carried out a nationwide survey among German medical directors of ICUs. In a separate block of questions we asked about the definition of sepsis used in daily practice. In addition, we asked whether the quick-sequential (sepsis-related) organ failure assessment (qSOFA) score is used in screening for sepsis in the hospital to which to the participating ICU belongs.Results: A total of 50 medical directors from anesthesiological ICUs took part in the survey. In total, the ICUs evaluated stated that they had around 14% of the high-care beds registered in Germany. The SEPSIS‑3 definition is integrated into everyday clinical practice at 78.9% of the university hospitals and 84.0% of the participating teaching hospitals. In contrast, the qSOFA screening test is only used by 26.3% of the participating university hospitals, but at least 52% of the teaching hospitals and 80% of the other hospitals.Conclusion: The data show that both SEPSIS‑3 and qSOFA have become part of everyday clinical practice in German hospitals. The cautious use of qSOFA at university hospitals with simultaneous broad acceptance of the SEPSIS‑3 definition can be interpreted as an indication that the search for a suitable screening test for sepsis has not yet been completed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Abnormal admission blood glucose was reported as a useful predictor of outcome in critically ill patients.Objectives: To identify patients at higher risk, this study aimed to evaluate the relationship between admission blood glucose levels and patient mortality during the management of nontraumatic critically ill patients in the emergency department (ED).Methods: In this prospective, single-center observational study in a German university ED, all adult patients admitted to the resuscitation room of the ED were included between September 1, 2014 and August 31, 2015. Directly after resuscitation room admission, blood samples for admission blood glucose were taken, and adult patients were divided into groups according to predefined cut-offs between the admission blood glucose. Study endpoint was in-hospital mortality.Results: During the study period, 532 patients were admitted to the resuscitation room. The data of 523 patients (98.3%) were available for analysis. The overall in-hospital mortality was 34.2%. In comparison with an in-hospital mortality of 25.2% at an admission blood glucose of 101-136 mg/dL (n = 107), admission blood glucose of ≤ 100 mg/dL (n = 25, odds ratio [OR] 6.30, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.44-16.23, p < 0.001), 272-361 mg/dL (n = 63, OR 2.53, 95% CI 1.31-4.90, p = 0.007), and ≥ 362 mg/dL (n = 44, OR 2.96, 95% CI 1.42-6.18, p = 0.004) were associated with a higher mortality.Conclusions: Abnormal admission blood glucose is associated with a high in-hospital mortality. Admission blood glucose is an inexpensive and rapidly available laboratory parameter that may predict mortality and help to identify critically ill patients at risk in a general nontraumatic critically ill ED patient cohort. The breakpoint for in-hospital mortality may be an admission blood glucose ≤ 100 and ≥ 272 mg/dL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How is it that Poland and Hungary, formerly regional leaders in democratic progress in east central Europe, have become widely cited cases of democratic backsliding? According to the political science literature on democratization, the path by which they exited communism should have favored stable democratic outcomes. This paper reexamines that literature and argues that it misses potential populist dangers inherent in the combination of accommodation and contention in the democratization process in both countries. The paper argues that changes in the structural conditions under which Polish and Hungarian democracy operated markedly improved the chances of success for populist actors in electoral competition, explaining the rise of PiS and FiDeSz. Particular attention is paid to the role of the global economic crisis of 2008 and the European refugee crisis of 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical evaluations and thermodynamic optimizations of the tin-sulfur (Sn–S), silver-sulfur (Ag–S), and antimony-sulfur (Sb–S) binary systems were carried out over the whole composition range. The Modified Quasichemical Model (MQM) in the pair approximation was applied for the liquid phase to consider the short-range-ordering (SRO) in the phase. The binary compounds SnS, Sn 2 S 3 , SnS 2 , Ag 2 S, and Sb 2 S 3 were treated as stoichiometric compounds. The allotropic transformations were taken into account in the formulation of the Gibbs energy equations. In the Ag–S system, the face-centered cubic (fcc) Ag solid solution was modeled by the Bragg-Williams (BW) model to improve the calculations for the solubility of S as a function of temperature. In the present study, particular focus was placed on the accurate prediction of the measured activities and enthalpies of the liquid phase. Using the MQM, these thermodynamic quantities could be calculated with high accuracy. Published measurements of the phase diagrams, invariant temperatures, and compounds could be reproduced within typical experimental errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A weasel word is a term used in academic or political discourse whose meaning is so imprecise or badly defined that it impedes the formulation of coherent thought on the subject to which it is applied, or leads to unsubstantiated conclusions. In this symposium we consider several key terms central to the study of postcommunist politics and discuss the extent to which they fall into this category. The terms discussed here include regime terminology, the notion of postcommunism, the geographic entity "Eurasia," socialism, populism, and neoliberalism. While the authors come to different conclusions about the extent to which these terms are weasel words, they also provide pointers for how to deploy terms in ways that are consistent with the underlying concept and thus aid in the cumulation of knowledge about the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authoritarian incumbents routinely use democratic emulation as a strategy to extend their tenure in power. Yet, there is also evidence that multiparty competition makes electoral authoritarianism more vulnerable to failure. Proceeding from the assumption that the outcomes of authoritarian electoral openings are inherently uncertain, it is argued in this article that the institutionalisation of elections determines whether electoral authoritarianism promotes stability or vulnerability. By 'institutionalisation', it is meant the ability of authoritarian regimes to reduce uncertainty over outcomes as they regularly hold multiparty elections. Using discrete‐time event‐history models for competing risks, the effects of sequences of multiparty elections on patterns of regime survival and failure in 262 authoritarian regimes from 1946 to 2010 are assessed, conditioned on their degree of competitiveness. The findings suggest that the institutionalisation of electoral uncertainty enhances authoritarian regime survival. However, for competitive electoral authoritarian regimes this entails substantial risk. The first three elections substantially increase the probability of democratisation, with the danger subsequently diminishing. This suggests that convoking multiparty competition is a risky game with potentially high rewards for autocrats who manage to institutionalise elections. Yet, only a small number of authoritarian regimes survive as competitive beyond the first few elections, suggesting that truly competitive authoritarianism is hard to institutionalise. The study thus finds that the question of whether elections are dangerous or stabilising for authoritarianism is dependent on differences between the ability of competitive and hegemonic forms of electoral authoritarianism to reduce electoral uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The third wave of democratization has given way to a reverse wave of autocratization. A critical question is what can be done to prevent democratic breakdowns and make democracy endure. A large body of historical-narrative and small-N comparative scholarship has suggested that an active mobilized civil society and institutionalized political parties can be mobilized to protect democracy from authoritarian takeovers. We provide the first rigorous set of empirical analyses to test this argument using data from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project for the period from 1900 to 2010. We find that both exert a robust, independent, and substantial effect on the survival of democracies. These findings have important policy implications for the international community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We theorize that three distinct structures of democratic constraint explain why more democratic dyads do not engage in military conflict with each other. We build on earlier theories that focused on electoral and horizontal accountability. We add a new dimension—the social accountability provided by an active civil society. Using several new measures from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) data set, we stringently test these explanations. We find social accountability to be the strongest and most consistent predictor of nonbelligerence in dyads, that horizontal accountability is still important, but that the independent role of electoral accountability has been somewhat overstated. However, we do find that social and electoral accountability work strongly together, to make for an even greater effect. The finding is robust to a range of specifications and in the face of controls for contending theories that challenge the democratic peace (e.g., the capitalist and territorial peace theories). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients often present to emergency departments after potential or confirmed exposure to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) asking for recommendations concerning the initiation of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). These presentations may occur after occupational as well as non-occupational exposure. PEP entails taking a triple antiretroviral therapy for 28–30 days. If taken early (ideally within 2 h, but no later than 72 h) and as indicated, HIV infection can be prevented with a high level of probability. Since these presentations occur around the clock, they require basic expertise on the part of the emergency department staff regarding its indication and its side effects as well as standardized procedures in the emergency department to not delay initiation. Patients should present to an infectious disease outpatient clinic or practice specialized in HIV in order to have the indication reviewed by a specialist and, if necessary, adapted to complex cases with the aim of making individual case decisions. This review article aims to summarize core statements of the 2022 German–Austrian guideline on HIV post-exposure prophylaxis and to give emergency department staff necessary knowledge to safely and correctly begin PEP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grain boundary migration in pure electrolytic iron (Fe > 99.98 %) was studied under isothermal conditions at 1050 °C, 1150 °C, 1250 °C and 1350 °C. High-temperature laser scanning confocal microscopy (HT-LSCM) was used to observe the in-situ grain growth of austenite (γ-Fe) on the sample surface. The dependence of the arithmetic mean grain size on time and temperature were considered in a mathematical model according to classic grain growth theory. As no other effects, e.g., pinning by precipitation or impurity-induced solute drag, occur in pure Fe, the grain boundary mobility M was directly determined by fitting the experimental results. The temperature relationship followed an Arrhenius equation with M = 6.79*10−6*exp(-172750R−1T−1) m4J−1s−1. The mobility obtained differed by more than two orders of magnitude from Turnbull's postulation, which agreed with observations in the literature. The results matched published data extrapolated from a recent study on austenite grain growth in multicomponent steels. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the debate over democratization and conflict, we demonstrate how the connection between conceptualization and operationalization can play a decisive role in testing falsifiable hypotheses. We discuss seven different operationalizations of regime change based on three different conceptualizations of democracy. Although we find high correlations between different measures of democracy, when they are used to capture regime change, the correlations drop precipitously. In multivariate estimations of the effect of regime change on a range of conflict variables, we generate widely disparate results, providing no consistent support that democratization affects conflict. We thus demonstrate that decisions about conceptualization and subsequent operationalization have decisive impact on the inference we produce. In contrast, our controls for the effect of institutionalized democracy consistently show a negative relationship between joint democracy and conflict. Finally, autocratic regime change seems to be more robustly correlated with a range of conflict behaviors than heretofore recognized in this literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including income disparity in new democracies in Europe, inequality in Poland after 1989, and civil socities in autocratic regimes.

This article argues that the strength of civil society at the point of extrication from communism is a powerful predictor of how “liberal democratic” post-communist regimes become. This is based on the impact that an engaged civil society has on the reconfiguration of post-communist elites and the degree to which the model of accumulation permits concentrat on of resources in the hands of previous elites. In cases where civil society was engaged a: the moment of extrication, the elite were disposed to a more liberal model of capitalism which afforded greater social welfare protection. Where civil society was weaker, the elite were able to convert political power into concentrated control of economic assets and a more predatory and inegalitarian model of political capitalism emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on the legacies of communism for democratization has focused almost exclusively on explaining variation in the democratic experiences within the postcommunist space. While this is useful in many ways, it says little about a communist legacy in comparison to other types of antecedent regimes. We take a different approach, looking at the question by comparing postcommunist legacies to those of other states through the prism of democratic survival. One key implication of this shift in perspective is that the literature on democratic survival highlights a range of social and economic factors that are likely to help postcommunist democracies survive, which stands in stark contrast to the postcommunist democratic performance literature that emphasizes potential disadvantages. We assess these competing and contradictory implications by analyzing the relative likelihood of democratic survival using a sample of all third-wave democracies from 1970 to 2010. We find that postcommunist democracies are neither systematically more nor less likely to fail than other democracies. Further, we find no evidence that the prospects of failure are significantly affected by past membership in the Soviet Union or the Eastern Bloc, the type of communist regime, or the number of years under communist rule. These findings provide little evidence that the problems of postcommunist democratization pose a more difficult set of conditions for democratic survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Emergency airway management (AM) is a priority when resuscitating critically ill or severely injured patients. The goal of this study was to determine the success rates of LT insertion during AM. Methods. Studies that included LT first-pass insertion (FPI) and overall-pass insertion (OPI) success by emergency medical services and in-hospital providers performing AM for emergency situations as well as for scheduled surgery published until July 2014 were searched systematically in Medline. Results. Data of 36 studies (n = 1,897) reported a LT FPI success by physicians of 82.5% with an OPI success of 93.6% (p<0.001). A cumulative analysis of all 53 studies (n = 3,600) led to FPI and OPI success of 80.1% and 92.6% (p<0.001), respectively. The results of 26 studies (n = 2,159) comparing the LT with the laryngeal mask airway (LMA) demonstrated a FPI success of 77.0 versus 78.7% (p=0.36) and an OPI success of 92.2 versus 97.7% (p<0.001). Conclusion. LT insertion failed in the first attempt in one out of five patients, with an overall failure rate in one out of 14 patients. When compared with the LT, the LMA had a cumulative 5.5% better OPI success rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A substantial literature connects democracy with superior welfare outcomes. A recent wave of publications takes issue with this finding, positing that globalization, authoritarian legacies and sample bias undermine the posited relationship and the statistical findings that support this thesis. We introduce a new dimension into this debate, state capacity. Using a disaggregated Weberian approach to the state, which focuses on its ability to maintain order and to effect human development through bureaucratic means, we explore the relationship of state capacity with three critical welfare outcomes, infant mortality, education, and basic nutrition. We establish the importance of these two elements of state capacity for these specific welfare outcomes through a time-series cross-sectional analysis of developing nations covering the period of the 1980s to the 2000s. We also do not find strong evidence that democracy affects either infant mortality or basic nutrition in models that incorporate state capacity. There is evidence that democracy does positively effect education outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reconsiders the work of Barrington Moore and his critics on the historical emergence of democracy in the light of post-communist democratization. What are we to make of a region which violates Moore's dictum – “No bourgeoisie, no democracy”? Using the tools of comparative historical analysis, it makes sense of how democracy emerged in the region by developing a theory which both explains why this was possible and what social actors were essential to this outcome. With attention to patterns of social development in the region, the politics of elite alliance in the final phase of communism, the strength of civil society at extrication, and the role of the international system, it explains differences in regime outcomes across the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the nearly quarter century since the collapse of communism, a great many outcomes in East Europe and the former Soviet Union, from patterns of democratic consolidation to state–society relations, have been attributed to legacies of the past. Yet despite the common goal of understanding the influence of the past, there is little consensus on how to conceptualize historical legacies. Through a focus on post-communist outcomes and their relation to prior outcomes and causal precursors, this article assesses what counts as a historical legacy and how legacies differ from non-legacies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Eastern Europe continues to be defined and redefined not just by the actual patterns of socio-economic and political reproduction of the distant and proximate regimes governing the region but also through the perceptions of such legacies as generating fundamental similarities. Such perceived similarities, whether or not closely mapped on the objective parallels among countries in Eastern Europe, facilitate intra-region diffusion that results in (further) spatio-temporal socio-economic and political similarities specific to the region. To illustrate this relationship between precommunist and communist legacies, intra-region diffusion, and the production of Eastern Europe, the article examines Slovakia’s diffusion entrepreneurship in the wave of electoral breakthroughs in Eastern Europe in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This article contributes to the literatures on Eastern Europe and comparative democratization in two main ways. First, it adds to the work on the impact of spatio-temporal dependence on transition outcomes, such as democratization, in Eastern Europe. Second, by doing so, the article also documents the impact of an understudied set of democracy promoters—the Eastern European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including East European studies in the post-communist era, the influence of religious groups on public policy in post-communist polities, and the concept of historical legacy.

The essay introduces five principles of an approach that helps to combine context sensitivity with generalizing ambition necessary for any serious comparative work. It also offers a list of five areas where East European experts are or should be making major contributions to the “general” knowledge while remaining attentive to the “specificities” of their region. It emphasizes a dialogue among scholars of several theoretical and methodological persuasions. Such synthetic/syncretic studies—also in the study of power and politics—may and often do begin with the work of researchers who construct panoramic vistas (via large-N statistical work) and/or reconstruct mechanisms of individual decision making (via game theoretic models). Nevertheless, they cannot do without the work of those who delve into the details of social processes (via sociological analysis); those who decipher the intricacies of meaning creation, transmission, and decoding (via interpretive work); and those who are able to place all of this in proper historical contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay outlines theoretical visions or paradigms that have underpinned empirical and historical work on the great transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. Such paradigms shaped “sociological imaginations” and analytical lenses through which scholars generated important questions and developed their research interests and projects. The study of post-communism was influenced by three such paradigms: the first focused on the immediate communist past as the main constraint on post-1989 transformations; the second attempted to transcend the specificities of post-communism and integrate the study of the region with the general comparative politics enterprise; and finally, the third signified the return to a disciplined exploration of historical and cultural contexts and their role in shaping the outcomes of transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does Eastern Europe contribute to the debate over EU’s democratic deficit from an electoral perspective? Does Eastern Europe challenge our theoretical understanding of what motivates European citizens to participate and express their opinions in European Parliamentary elections? While there is no overarching consensus in the academic community regarding these questions, this essay aims to illustrate how a deeper understanding of one post-communist case and a bottom-up perspective on attitudes and political behavior in one locale, Romania, allowed the researcher to delve deeper into the taken-for-granted dynamics that European citizens from the South, East, and West engage in when voting in European Parliamentary elections. The approach of “ethnographic sensibility” mentioned in the workshop’s discussions and illustrated in several contributions to this volume (see e.g. Kubik 2013; Knott 2015) constitutes then a useful starting point in deconstructing conventional knowledge. Moreover, during the process of moving up the ladder of generality and building inferences from one case study to a region, Eastern Europe still shares enough characteristics to deserve its own dummy variable, so to speak, in large-N continent-wide analyses covering the 2004 and 2009 European Parliamentary (EP) elections. Yet, as Joshua Tucker (2015) mentions in his contribution, it is unclear whether the historical legacies discussed at the workshop and further elaborated on by Grigore Pop-Eleches (2015) will continue to play a role in a priori distinguishing Eastern Europeans’ political attitudes and behaviors from other EU citizens in the South or West in future EP elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that bottom–up, people-centered research which uses ethnographic and everyday approaches is crucial but underutilized in research on identity politics in Eastern Europe. In order to understand what concepts such as ethnicity and citizenship mean in the context of people’s everyday lives, it is vital to understand whether taken-for-granted political concepts are appropriate and the make-up of data such as census data. The article first introduces the methods of political ethnography and bottom–up interviews by discussing how they can be applied and their value within political science. The paper uses data gathered from interviews in Moldova and Crimea (when it was still a de jure and de facto part of Ukraine) to demonstrate the value of this approach. It shows how interview data can add significantly to the understanding of kin-state relations within political science by adding a richness of context and a bottom–up perspective that quantitative and elite-level interviews fail to provide. Lastly, the paper draws on experiences gained from research design to discuss how bottom–up research in political science can be conducted rigorously. The article argues that this approach can deepen the understanding of identity politics and kin-state relations or, more broadly, important post-communist questions such as democratization and Europeanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing up in Bulgaria during the “transition” years, as a then fifteen-year old, I spent the summer of 1990 queuing up at the neighborhood newsstand waiting for the daily delivery of freshly printed newspapers. Shortages of goods, including food and gasoline, caused long lines in front of many stores, but the crowd waiting at the kiosk was eager to read about the latest political developments, and especially popular were the newspapers published by the newly established opposition parties. While there was no scarcity of political news via television and radio, there was always something special about the print media, much of which, including entertainment weeklies, were such a novelty. Twenty or so years later, I spent another summer among newspapers, in the archives of the National Library in Sofia, poring through the pages and—with no digitization of archives—collecting photographs of news articles published before each of the national legislative elections since 1990. Much has changed in the media environment since then, yet the study of media in post-communist societies and especially its relations to voters, parties, and politics in general is still in its infancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the contribution of Eastern European scholarship to the study of human rights and transitional justice? This essay takes stock of the most significant empirical and theoretical contributions of the study of Eastern Europe, specifically the study of the difficult case of the former Yugoslavia, to the scholarship on transitional justice. I identify three main challenges the scholarship on the former Yugoslavia has presented to the larger field of transitional justice: the political challenge of multiple overlapping transitions, the inability of international institutions to effect domestic social change, and the dangers of politicization of past violence remembrance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a critical analysis of the view that Marx’s critique of capitalism provides the analytical lenses necessary to understand post-communist transformations. The author examines the problematic premises underpinning this view—for example, that capitalism can be created by design, and that in the early 1990s the former “second world” constituted a tabula rasa—and insists that a proper answer to the question “How did capitalism emerge in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union?” is yet to be given. The text also identifies the conceptual, theoretical, and empirical difficulties that might ensue if analyses of post-communist politics are reduced to a critique of neoliberal capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the study of post-communism has transformed comparative politics by adding a substantial role for external actors to existing theories of democratization. The big, overarching finding is dramatic: external actors can, under certain conditions, tip the balance in favor of democracy by offering strong rewards to elites, conditional on complying with tough requirements. External actors can also influence the performance of the state—and how the state treats its citizens. The main causal player is the European Union. This simple finding is consequential for all three major strands of democratization theory. The article goes on to explore how the leverage of the European Union has shaped the trajectories of political change in the new and credible future EU members in East Central and South Eastern Europe. The great variation among existing and candidate members can be largely explained by different domestic conditions, even though there are many areas where the EU’s use of its leverage could have been improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question “Whither Eastern Europe?” prompts the author to reflect upon the interplay of area studies and political power in the United States. Concerns about the future of East European studies tend to originate outside of academe: in the real or imagined declining relevance of Europe in the U.S. foreign policy orbit. Sadly, perhaps, as the region’s complex history and contemporary politics seem to attest, it is highly unlikely that it will lose its strategic importance anytime soon. Therefore, the most important dimension of East European continued significance might be the normative one. Whither to/for whom? Who are the audiences that we are addressing and what is our responsibility to them? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the theoretical rationale (and funding opportunities!) for considering Eastern Europe as a distinct region diminish as we move farther away from the momentous events of 1989, the value of including East-Central European countries in comparative studies has only increased. This article outlines how comparative studies of political behavior involving East-Central European countries have evolved in the author’s own research from comparative studies including Russia along with four East European countries, to more broadly based comparative studies including multiple East European countries and former Soviet Republics, to studies where behavior is analyzed in both East European countries and more established democracies, and finally to large cross-national studies focused on questions related to post-communist politics (namely, the legacy of communism on post-communist attitudes and behavior) but relying on the comparative analysis of survey data from countries around the world. In a way, the research has come full circle, from studies of East European political behavior to better understand East European political behavior, to studies including East European countries to better understand general questions of political behavior not specific to post-communist countries, to now the most extensive comparative studies that are, however, designed once again to better understand East European political attitudes and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe is again a divided continent. When it comes to governance, political economy, or values, two contrasting poles have emerged: one Western, liberal, and democratic, another Eastern, statist, and autocratic. The dividing line between them has become ever sharper, threatening to separate Europe into two distinct worlds. This new divide in Europe arises from a clash between two geopolitical concepts for the continent: One is the Western project of a “Europe whole and free,” an enlarging zone of economic cooperation, political interdependency, and democratic values. The other is the Russian project of a “Eurasian Union” to rival the European Union. This article shows how these two sides of Europe have grown further apart in their conceptions of the European space, their values, governance, and economic models. It explores the reasons for the belated Western responses to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s program to divide Europe. The Russo-Georgian war was a turning point, but the West took a long time to recognize the full implications of Putin’s policy. The current confrontation between Russia and the West is not exactly like the Cold War. Russia’s position is weaker. And the battle will be fought out primarily with economic instruments. However, it is clear that this conflict places Central and Eastern Europe back on the front lines of a divided Europe, raising any number of demons from the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses two distinctive approaches for thinking about historical legacies in the post-communist context. The first approach, which builds on the work of Ken Jowitt, emphasizes the distinctiveness of Leninist socioeconomic and political legacies, while the second approach, rooted in the writings of Andrew Janos, highlights the significant and resilient pre-communist, communist, and post-communist diversity of the countries of the former Soviet bloc. The empirical evidence reviewed in this paper suggests that both types of legacies continue to matter after a quarter-century of post-communist transitions. Thus, whereas we can still discern a distinctive and fairly uniform communist imprint in areas such as primary education and the importance of the state sector in the economy, in other areas of socioeconomic development, either communism was unable to reverse longer-term intraregional differences (e.g., with respect to GDP/capita or the size of the agrarian sector) or its initially distinctive developmental imprint has been fundamentally reshaped by post-communist economic reforms (as in the case of the massive increase in income inequality in a subset of ex-communist countries). In political terms, there is an interesting contrast between institutional trajectories (such as regime type), which largely follow pre-communist developmental differences, and individual political attitudes and behavior, where communist exceptionalism generally trumps post-communist diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leninism and the central role that violence played in it is most commonly presented as a hindrance to democratic development in post-communist Eastern Europe. This paper reconsiders this proposition in light of the classics of comparative historical analysis. These classic works maintain that the long-term consequences of revolutionary violence sometimes counteract its short-term anti-democratic impact. Social change unleashed by revolution can contribute to the emergence of democracy in subsequent periods by removing pre-modern barriers to democracy. Two aspects of Leninist violence are highlighted as having such effects: forced modernization and the civilizing process. Communist modernization altered pre-modern social structures which had served as impediments to democracy prior to the Leninist seizure of power. The resulting social structures and the values reinforced by the communist version of the “civilizing process,” patterned on those of bourgeois conventions of the early twentieth century, helped some post-communist countries overcome obstacles to the introduction of liberal democracy encountered in earlier attempts in the region after World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Levels of both religiosity and of religious influence on public policy vary enormously across the countries of post-communist East Central Europe. This variation poses a challenge to existing explanations, which have focused on religious competition and alliances with political parties to explain religious participation and policy influence, respectively. The legacy of religious nationalism instead helps to explain both the vibrancy of religious participation and the influence of churches on democratic public policy. This variation also calls for greater scrutiny of “historical legacies”: while some patterns are durable and reach back centuries, others are recent innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective:Two patient-focused long-term research projects performed in the German outpatient psychotherapy system are focused on in this article. The TK (Techniker Krankenkasse) project is the first study to evaluate a quality assurance and feedback system with regard to its practical feasibility in German routine care. The other study (“Quality Assurance in Outpatient Psychotherapy in Bavaria”; QS-PSY-BAY) was designed to test a new approach for quality assurance in outpatient psychotherapy using electronic documentation of patient characteristics and outcome parameters. In addition this project provides the opportunity to analyze data on health-related costs for the patients undergoing outpatient psychotherapy.Method:Both projects and their results indicating high effect sizes are briefly described.Results:From the perspectives of the research teams, advisory boards and other stakeholders, the experiences with these projects are discussed focusing on obstacles, challenges, difficulties, and benefits in developing and implementing the studies. The triangle collaboration of therapists, researchers, and health insurance companies/health service institutions turned out to be fruitful in both studies.Conclusions:Despite some controversies between the partners the experiences indicate the importance of practiced-research collaborations to provide relevant information about the delivery of outpatient psychotherapy in the health system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Giovanni Sartori once described African party systems as “formless.” Our contribution challenges this view in an era of resurgent multipartism that swept through the subcontinent in the early 1990s and continues until today. The article brings together contemporary research on African party systems with the wider disciplinary literature on party system institutionalization. Using a data set including all continuous election sequences in Africa from 1950 to 2008, we find that Africa has some of the most volatile party systems ever recorded and yet, tremendous diversity across regimes. We test the relative impact of political institutions, economic performance, the history of party system development, and social cleavage structure on party system institutionalization in Africa. We find that its party systems have been shaped by a set of factors unique to the subcontinent, but some of the general global patterns of party system development hold true in Africa as well. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Purpose: To investigate various anatomical locations of portomesenteric venous gas detected by computed tomography (CT) and their relationship with the underlying etiology and the outcome. Methods: The study group consisted of 47 cases with evidence of portomesenteric venous gas detected on abdominal CT examinations, 12 cases were identified through a retrospective PACS search, 35 were prospectively included. The presence of gas at specific anatomical locations in the portomesenteric venous vasculature was assessed according to a pre-defined classification: the arcade vessels close to the bowel segments followed by segmental vessels, the superior mesenteric vein, the extra- and intrahepatic portal vein. The etiology of portomesenteric venous gas and its prognosis were assessed by review of surgical reports, histopathology and medical records. Surgery was performed on 30 patients. Results: Overall 68.1% of cases were of ischemic etiology. Gas present in the arcade vessels was the best indicator for ischemia (sensitivity 93.8%; specificity 70.0%, positive predictive value 90.9%, negative predictive value 77.8%) compared to other locations and the mere presence of portomesenteric gas independent from the location. The overall mortality rate was 53.2%. Only gas in the arcade and segmental vessels were associated with considerably higher mortality rates (65.8% and 75.0%, respectively) and acceptable frequency (occurrence in 80.9% and 59.6%, respectively). Conclusions: The study results indicate that the presence of gas at specific anatomical locations in the portomesenteric venous system, namely the arcade and segmental vessels, may serve as strong indicator for ischemic etiology and poor prognosis in the assessment of individual cases. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Democracy has been the primary focus of our efforts to understand the impact of domestic institutions on processes of international conflict. In this article, we examine how a particular nondemocratic regime type, postrevolutionary states, affects military capabilities and war outcomes. Drawing on scholarship that conceptualizes revolutions as a unique class of modernizing events that result in stronger state structures, we argue that postrevolutionary states should be better able to mobilize populations and economic resources for military purposes. Tests performed on a comprehensive sample of twentieth-century states and interstate wars confirm our predictions: postrevolutionary states have larger, better funded militaries and achieve more successful war outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Patterns of party system institutionalization have varied widely across regions. in post-communist democracies, weak party system institutionalization exists at high levels along three dimensions—volatility of representation, party extinction, and incumbency disadvantage—despite sustained economic growth. In these cases, the effects of economic restructuring are critical to electoral outcomes. A sample of democratic elections from 1990 to 2006 shows that postcommunist countries whose reform strategies minimize increases in inequality have more institutionalized party systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What were the causes and consequences of the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern and Central Europe? The causes lie in the exhaustion of the model of Soviet-type economic organization, the failure of reform efforts in the USSR, and the persistence of opposition to Soviet-type rule in Central Europe. The ramifications of the events are examined through the prism of three questions: (1) how do they change our evaluation of the past?; (2) what was the significance of 1989 as a moment in time?; and (3) how have they shaped the present? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Introduction: Echocardiography is a useful tool in patients suffering from shock of unknown origin to evaluate cardiac function and volume status in order to decide on further treatment. The aim of the study was to evaluate how well participants could identify function, preload and regional wall motion abnormalities after attending a 4-day transoesophageal echocardiography (TOE) seminar. Methods: In this prospective educational trial, participants of six TOE seminars from 2005 to 2006 were evaluated. On the basis of seven echocardiographic studies, evaluations by participants concerning cardiac function, preload and regional wall motion were analyzed. Moreover, specific causes of undifferentiated hypotension were to be judged in three cases by the participants. Results: A total of 115 participants of the TOE seminars from 2005 to 2006 were evaluated. Correct sectional plane was recognized by more than 76% of the participants. Left ventricular function, preload, and regional wall abnormalities were assessed correctly by the participants in 98%, 96%, and 84%, respectively. Moreover, more than 70% of the participants recognized the correct cause of hemodynamic instability. Conclusion: The results of the investigation show that participants of a 4-day TOE seminar can interpret left ventricular function, preload and regional wall motion abnormalities correctly at a very high rate. TOE seminars seem to be effective in teaching basic theoretical knowledge of TOE. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article gauges the impact on comparative politics of the methodological turn in political science through a review of four recent books on the role of comparative historical analysis in the subfield. Two volumes—one edited by James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer and the other edited by Henry Brady and David Collier-defend the accomplishments and strengths of comparative historical analysis. In contrast, the book by Barbara Geddes advocates a scientific approach combining rational choice theory with regression. The article includes a discussion of the interviews conducted by Gerardo Munck and Richard Snyder with prominent comparativists and questions whether strategies of inference should be our most pressing concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Introduction: The current guidelines of the European Resuscitation Council (ERC) stipulate that an intraosseous access should be placed if establishing a peripheral venous access for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) would involve delays. The aim of this study was therefore to compare a manual intraosseous infusion technique (MAN-IO) and a semi-automatic intraosseous infusion system (EZ-IO) using adult human cadavers as a model. Materials and methods: After receiving verbal instruction and giving their written informed consent, the participants of the study were randomized into two groups (group I: MAN-IO, and group II: EZ-IO). In addition to the demographic data, the following were evaluated: (1) Number of attempts required to successfully place the infusion, (2) Insertion time, (3) Occurrence of technical complications and (4) User friendliness. Results: Evaluation protocols from 84 study participants could be evaluated (MAN-IO: n =39 vs. EZ-IO: n =45). No significant differences were seen in the study participants’ characteristics. Insertion times (MW±S.D.) of the respective successful attempts were comparable (MAN-IO: 33±28s vs. EZ-IO: 32±11s). When using the EZ-IO, the access was successfully established significantly more often on the first attempt (MAN-IO: 79.5% vs. EZ-IO: 97.8%; p <0.01). The EZ-IO was also found to have more advantages in terms of technical complications (MAN-IO: 15.4% vs. EZ-IO: 0.0%; p <0.01) and user friendliness (school grading system: MAN-IO: 1.9±0.7 vs. EZ-IO: 1.2±0.4; p <0.01). Conclusions: In an adult human cadaver model, the semi-automatic system was proven to be more effective. The EZ-IO gave more successful results, was associated with fewer technical complications, and is user friendlier. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Many scholars have argued that unequal socioeconomic distribution constitutes a threat to democratic survival. However, the evidence in support of this claim has been contradictory. We argue that this inconsistency derives from the literature’s assumption that income inequality will adequately reflect the conditions under which demands for radical redistribution will emerge and trigger antidemocratic elite reactions. We argue instead that when developmental context is taken into consideration, absolute forms of distribution, like basic needs deprivation, are better indicators of these conditions. When needs deprivation exists in the face of enhanced economic development, citizens will not only notice deprivation more readily, but also, given the greater social surplus, deem it more unacceptable, provoking radical demands for redistributive justice. This combination of development and continuing basic needs shortfalls, a condition that we refer to as regressive socioeconomic distribution, will threaten democratic survival. Using event history analysis on a sample composed of all democracies from 1961 to 1995, we confirm that regressive socioeconomic distribution increases the risk of breakdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]