The Slovak Republic: A Decade of Independence (1993-2002) by Mark M. Stolarik (review)

554 SEER, 83, 3, 2005 ensured by the demands on the part of the revolutionary crowd that the political system be transformed, as much in Romania or Bulgaria, as in Czechoslovakiaorthe GermanDemocratic Republic. Post-socialisttransitions underline some of the fluidity of geographical borders in the region; authoritariannationalistswere not only to be found, for example, in SouthEastern Europe; one could mention Slovakia's Vladimir Meciar, or even Hungary'sViktorOrb'an. Another smallcriticalcomment might be made regardingOkey's explanation of the survival of post-Communist successor parties in many of the countries of the region. He argues that the survival of such parties is the product of the fact 'thatwhat east Europeansdislikedin communismwas not the egalitarian,welfarist"nannystate" [. . ] but economic stagnationand the repressionof individual and national freedom' (p. i6o). While this statement contains a considerable degree of truth as an analysis of the preferences of post-socialistcitizens,it does not explain the survivalof parties,likeHungary's Socialistsand Poland'sSLD, who have prospereddespitethe factthat in office they have often pursued liberal economic policies. Nor does it explain the differencesin the trajectoriesof, for example, the Czech and Hungarian Left. Insteadwhat it suggestsis that one shouldlook at how thesepartiesare rooted in long-termpatternsofpoliticalidentificationin thesesocietiesand how those patternswere modifiedby the very differentpracticesof Communist rulersin the various countries, despite the apparent institutional similarities of the systemsthey maintained. Department ofHistory M. D. PITTAWAY TheOpen University Stolarik,MarkM. (ed.). TheSlovak Republic. ADecade ofIndependence (I993-2002). Bolchazy-CarducciPublishers,Wauconda, IL, 2004. xiv + I68 pp. Illustrations .Tables. Notes. Index. $I5.00 (paperback). THIS volume publishesthe papersfrom a conference, which broughttogether some prominentfiguresfrom Slovakpublic life, held in 2002 at the University of Ottawa. It reviewschanges in Slovakiain the firstdecade of independence under different policy headings with chapters from government figures (ministersor former ministers and some ambassadors)and comments from academics.While some of the materialisangledto Slovak-Canadianrelations, a number of the chaptersprovide a useful overview of general developments in various sectors of Slovak public policy. This is particularlytrue of those dealing with the justice system (Carnogursky),education (Fronc)and health care (Kovac). Although the preface somewhat apologetically remarks that 'the papers presentedwere by seniorgovernment officialsand, therefore,they are lacking the usual scholarlyapparatus'and that 'theircommentators somewhat made up for this shortcoming', the former tend in fact to be the more informative and occasionallyinsightfuland not merelybecause thelatteraremuch shorter and usually less interesting(one exception is Fodor'sspecialistcomments on the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases in Slovakia). Jan Carnogursky, REVIEWS 555 Slovak Minister of Justice I998-2002, provides, for instance, a useful summary of the main developments in judicial changes since the fall of Communism and remarkson the problems of lustration,the access to public informationon the internet and remaininginheritancesfrom the Communist period; while Thea Herman (from the Canadian Department of Justice) in response outlines stages in the partnership between the two countries over judicial reform since 1994 which has covered such themes as the functioning of the criminal justice system, computerization and prison administration, anti-drugstrategyand witnessprotection. Does thisslimvolume tell usverymuch about elite attitudes?Unfortunately not as the presentations are, notwithstandingthe detail they make available, written by and large in the style of official statements. Nevertheless, the commitment to Euro-Atlantic integration comes across strongly as in President Schuster'sopening addressto the conference. Overall, then, this is despite its meritsa modest contributionto knowledge about modern Slovakia and certainlyso when comparedwith suchpublicationsasthe yearbookof the InstituteforPublicAffairswhich coversin farmore detailall thepolicy sectors treatedhere by Stolarikand his collaborators. Department ofPolitics GEOFFREY PRIDHAM University ofBristol Malesevic, Sinisa. Ideology, Legitimacy, andtheNew State:rugoslavia, Serbiaand Croatia. Cass Series:Nationalism and Ethnicity, 4. FrankCass, London and Portland, OR, 2002. ix + 338 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. /42.50. THE wars of Yugoslav succession have provoked a voluminous scholarly output. Surprisingly few works, however, have addressed the nature of dominant ideologies in the new nation-states. It is as if ideology has been relegated to the dustbin of history together with the extinct Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. Malesevics book represents an important correction to views that bypass ideology in the name of allegedly more important 'material' interests and/or institutional factors. As Malesevic demonstrates, ideological constructions played a key role in legitimizing Milosevic'sand Tudjman'sethnocentricauthoritarianregimes. The book is divided into three parts...

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