author: Fredo Arias-King

Transiciones: La experiencia de Europa del Este by Fredo Arias-King is probably the first academic monograph in Spanish on the post-communist transitions in Eastern Europe. As author declares it is a “scholarly user’s manual” of transitions, and it is meant for the Cuban and Venezuelan reformers that will come to power one of these days soon. Now they cannot plead ignorance if they mess up their transition.

It covers the main issues that a new democratic leader will face in a typical post-communist or post-authoritarian transformation, including political, economic, institutional, social and other reforms. It attempts to dispel an abundance of myths about these transitions, and uses concrete case studies (Fredo Arias tends to concentrate on both extremes—the successes and the failures) to shed light on these concepts. The book follows the philosophy that democratically elected leaders—far from their usual “wimpy” image—can do a lot if they put their mind to it, certainly more than dictators can.

© Copyrights by Fredo Arias - King, www.ariasking.com