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The civil–military dynamic in Southeast Asia has been a contested issue for years. Although most countries in the region have been undertaken democratic governance, the military role in politics remains relatively unresolved. After having relatively stable civilian governments for over a decade, the Thai military launched another coup in 2014 to topple a democratically elected government. In Indonesia and the Philippines, the military has been moderately controlled by the democratically elected civilian governments, but their professional roles in sustaining democratic principles and values are also questionable. Accordingly, the crucial issues are the role that the military plays in the transition period, such as in Thailand, and the degree to which the military is institutionalised under civilian control in nascent democracies, such as Indonesia and the Philippines. These issues are addressed in the books discussed herein.

"Transition period" is a very rarely studied subject in literature, but its study is of great importance for science. The concept of a "transition period" is broad and complex, and during this period, states transform from one stage of development to another and certainly all states experience this process. Various definitions and approaches of the concept of the "transition period" are illuminated in this scientific literature.

On the basis of unpublished historical sources and notes, periodicals of the last third of the XIX century. It draws attention to the incidents that took place in the parish court and contemporaries petitions to reform detached from the general system of estate courts. However, representatives of government agencies, understood the injustice and backwardness of the peasants justice, were not ready for its radical restructuring.

There is a transitional phase between capitalism & socialism, during which the mode of ownership of the principal means of production is formally the whole society but the mode of real appropriation remains by limited collective bodies of workers, according to C. Bettleheim (LA TRANSITION VERS L'ECONOMIE SOCIALISTE, The Transition to Socialist Economy, 1968). In transitional soc formations, the units of production are enterprises, where state appointed directors--not workers--effectively possess (but do not own) the means of production & dispose of the products. Planning, which is the principal instrument for the soc direction of the economy, signifies the domination of the pol'al level over the econ level in transitional formations. At the level of labor relations, the enterprise retains several features of the capitalist mode of production, including (1) the persistence of wage labor; (2) the authority of the director; (3) the internal hierarchical org; (4) the continuing division between mental & manual labor. In addition to the enterprise, other instit'al sources that permit the reproduction of capitalist SR in a transitional society are (a) the existing capitalist world system; & (b) the state apparatus. If the state apparatus is truly & concretely dominated by the workers, then state ownership becomes the legal form for workers' soc ownership. But if the apparatus is dominated by a body of officials & admin'ors, it becomes the vehicle for the formation of a new SC of effective owners of the means of production--the state bourgeoisie. A transitional society with state ownership of enterprises connected by commodity relations & operated by wage-labor for the purpose of reproducing & increasing value, not satisfying human needs, has degenerated into state capitalism. The transitional society is a distinct historical stage with its own particular relations that can merge into socialism, on the road to communism, only if specific tasks are fulfilled. A. Karmen.

Economic reforms in the post-Soviet countries have led to a number of unintended results. The explanation consists in not taking into consideration the institutional constraints existed in these countries, both formal and informal. In particular, the nature of authority relationship must be included in economic analysis. The unintended results of the privatization programs of the 1990s are discussed as an example. The emerged structure of property rights is far from being efficient (e.g., the corporative governance is weak) and socially just. However, the forced redistribution of property right will worsen the situation, as far as the nature of authority relationships — the imposed authority — remains constant.

The study presents estimates and analyses of the social expenditure in Poland. Changes which occurred during the transformation period are a reflection of consciously launched political transformations as well as decisions taken as a result of current needs and political pressures. This has an impact on the volume and structure of expenditures which are under consolidation. The debate devoted to budget issues, which gets more intense every autumn, testifies to increasing problems with correcting guidelines for distribution of expenditures. Even slight changes stand for depriving a specified group of transfers, what in democratic conditions produces strong protests. A similar negative attitude to changes became evident with regard to taxation. Recommendations presented in 1998 by the Polish government [see Ministry of Finance, 1998a, 1998b] introduce substantial modifications to the current tax system (withdrawal from tax exemptions and introduction of a tax-free minimum income) and thus met with a massive reluctance of major political fractions. This study provides readers with information on the volume of public expenditures, the source of public revenue, that is taxes, and a thorough study on expenditures allocated to social goals. The analysis was carried out on the basis of own estimates, which employ data acquired from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy.

In Rußland ist die demographische Situation seit vielen Jahren schwierig. Sie wird heute gekennzeichnet durch anhaltenden Geburtenrückgang, der sich in den neunziger Jahren beschleunigt; steigende Indikatoren der Mortalität, besonders bei Männern im arbeitsfähigen Alter und bei den nichtnatürlichen Todesursachen; dauerhaft hohe Kindersterblichkeit, die weiter ansteigt; zunehmende Ehescheidungen bei rückläufigen Eheschließungen; steigende Anzahl der Alleinerziehenden, die gegenwärtig 4 Millionen Kinder versorgen; seit 1992 ist ein tatsächlicher Bevölkerungsrückgang zu beobachten, es sterben mehr Menschen als Kinder geboren werden.

For many years a neglected figure, Nikolai Bukharin has recently been the subject of renewed interest in the West. Now regarded as a leading Marxist theorist, Bukharin's work has wide appeal to those interested in Soviet history and Marxist economics as well as to those concerned with theories of development and socialist economies