Reviews

Gilbert Rozman, Seizaburo Sato & Gerald Segal, eds, Dismantling Communism: Common Causes and Regional Variations. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, x + 405 pp., £28.50. Ben Fowkes, The Rise and Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993, xv + 228 pp., £40.00

Stephen Whitefield, Industrial Power and the Soviet State. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, 279 pp; £35.00

Steve H. Hanke, Lars Jonung & Kurt Schuler, Russian Currency and Finance: A Currency Board Approach to Reform. London and New York: Routledge, 1993, xvi + 222 pp., £35.00.

Gregory S. Alexander & Grazyna Skapska eds, A Fourth Way? Privatization, Property, and the Emergence of New Market Economies. New York, London: Routledge, 1994, xxiii + 336 pp., £40.00 h/b, £14.99 p/b.

John and Carol Garrard (eds), World War II and the Soviet People. Selected Papers from the Fourth World Congress for Soviet and East European Studies, Harrogate, 1990. New York: St Martin Press, 1993, 268 pp. $45.00.

John Barber & Mark Harrison, The Soviet Home Front: A Social and Economic History of the USSR in World War II. London and New York: Longman, 1991, xiii + 252pp

Richard Debo, Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918–1921. Montreal: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1992, xiii + 502 pp., £42.00.

Amy Knight, Beria: Stalin's First Lieutenant. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993, xvii + 312 pp., $24.95, ;19.95.

Ronald Grigor Suny, Looking Toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993, xi + 289 pp. £32.50 h/b, £12.99 p/b.     

Deploying the Classic 'Community Method' in the Social Policy Field: The Example of the Acquired Rights Directive

The use of the Community method of legislation, in particular the deployment of directives, has for a long time been at the core of EC labour market policy. This article seeks to reflect on the lessons to be learned from the experience of the adoption and operation of one particularly significant directive, namely the Acquired Rights Directive, and on the experience of its transposition in one Member State, Ireland. Among features noted at the EU level are the watering down of the Commission's initial legislative ambitions; the substantial lacunae, failures to address issues and ambiguities incorporated in the text of the directive, the consequent enlarged role for the Court of Justice and the apparent difficulty in changing policy direction in the event of errors being made. As regards the Irish experience of transposing the directive, lessons learnt have included the importance of the means of implementation chosen by the Member State; the obstructive effect which national industrial relations systems may have on the evolution of a common European approach; the significance which attaches to national sanctions and enforcement mechanisms; the importance attaching to the degree of collective organisation in workplaces where the implementing legislation is sought to be relied upon; and the potential which the implementation of a directive has for disruption of the harmony of a national policy approach. Finally, the use of a form of social dialogue in the implementation of employment-related directives in Ireland is also commented upon.     

International marriage in East and Southeast Asia: trends and research emphases

This paper gives an overview on international marriage in East and Southeast Asia. It first reviews the available data on the incidence and trends of transnational marriage. It then discusses the factors generally cited as contributing to the rising incidence of international marriage in the region: the increased mobility of population, particularly with respect to tourism, business travel, short-term employment and international study; and marriage market issues in a number of countries of the region, leading to deliberate and targeted search for spouses in other countries. It also reviews the types of international marriages in the region, including the national, ethnic and social characteristics of spouses in such marriages. Finally, it discusses the issues and problems covered and not (or inadequately) covered in the literature of international marriage in East and Southeast Asia in relation to the questions of rights and of the boundaries and sovereignty of the state.     

Popular Punitiveness? Punishment and Attitudes to Law in Post-Soviet Georgia

Georgia is the only country in the post-Soviet region where incarceration rates significantly grew in the 2000s. Then in 2013, the prison population was halved through a mass amnesty. Did this punitiveness and its sudden relaxation after 2012 impact attitudes to the law? We find that these attitudes remained negative regardless of levels of punitiveness. Furthermore, the outcomes of sentencing may be less important than procedures leading to sentencing. Procedural justice during both punitiveness and liberalisation was not assured. This may explain the persistence of negative attitudes to law. The Georgian case shows that politically-driven punitive turns or mass amnesties are unlikely to solve the problem of legal nihilism in the region.