The shocking fall of communism in Eastern and Central Europe

in the late eighties was remarkable for both its rapidity and its

scope. The specifics of communism's demise varied among nations,

but similarities in both the causes and the effects of these

revolutions were quite similar. As well, all of the nations

involved shared the common goals of implementing democratic

systems of government and moving to market economies. In each of

these nations, the communist regimes in power were forced to

transfer that power to radically different institutions than they

were accustomed to. Democracy had been spreading throughout the

world for the preceding two decades, but with a very important

difference. While previous political transitions had seen

similar circumstances, the actual events in question had

generally occurred individually. In Europe, on the other hand,

the shift from communism was taking place in a different context

altogether. The peoples involved were not looking to affect a

narrow set of policy reforms; indeed, what was at stake was a

hyper-radical shift from the long-held communist ideology to a

and international integration remained the main issue in the

constitution (although many of the pitfalls of constitution-

instances where this mistrust manifests itself.

engineering their entire economic and political systems, the

former owners without alienating possible future investors. The

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1778
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)