Reviews

Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, £19.99.

Terry Cox, From Perestroika to Privatisation: The Politics of Property Change in Russian Society 1985–1991. Aldershot: Avebury, 1996, vi + 158 pp., £30.00.

Maxim Boyko, Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, Privatizing Russia. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, ix + 165 pp., £15.95.

Iver B. Neumann, Russia and the Idea of Europe: A Study in Identity and International Relations. London: Routledge, 1996, xviii + 253 pp., £13.99.

James P. Nichol, Diplomacy in the Former Soviet Republics. Westport, CT, London: Praeger, 1995, xii + 244 pp., £49.50.

Randall W. Stone, Satellites and Commissars: Strategy and Conflict in the Politics of Soviet‐Bloc Trade. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996, xviii + 283 pp., $39.50.

Adrian Hyde‐Price, The International Politics of East Central Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996, xviii + 300 pp., £45.00 h/b, £14.99 p/b.

John Dornberg, Central and Eastern Europe. Phoenix: The Oryx Press, 1995, x 4‐ 238 pp., £21.95.

Robert B. Pynsent (ed.), The Literature of Nationalism: Essays on East European Identity. London: University of London, 1996, viii + 282 pp.

Iliana Zloch‐Christy (ed.), Bulgaria in a Time of Change: Economic and Political Dimensions. Aldershot: Avebury, 1996, xi + 221 pp., £35.00.

Grzegorz Wec?awowicz, Contemporary Poland: Space and Society. London: UCL Press, 1996, 208 pp., £40.00 h/b., £14.95 p/b.

Maria Drohobycky (ed.), Crimea. Dynamics, Challenges and Prospects. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1995, xix + 250 pp., £34.50 h/b., £15.95 p/b.

Helen Fodor (ed.), Belarus and Moldova. Country Studies. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1995, xxvi + 254 pp.

Kevin P. O'Prey, A Farewell to Arms? Russia's Struggles with Defense Conversion. New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1995, vii + 143 pp., $9.95.

Alison Hilton, Russian Folk Art. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995, xxiv + 356 pp., £31.50.

George F. Kennan, At a Century's Ending: Reflections, 1982–1995. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1996, 351 pp., US$27.50, £19.95.

Martin McCauley, The Khrushchev Era 1953–1964. London: Longman, 1995, 99 pp., £5.99.

Martin McCauley, The Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1949. 2nd edn. London: Longman, 1995, xii + 153 pp., £5.99.

Geoffrey Swain, The Origins of the Russian Civil War. Essex: Longman, 1996, xiv + 296 pp., £13.99.

Peter B. Maggs, The Mandelstam and “Der Nister” Files: An Introduction to Stalin‐era Prison and Labor Camp Records. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, 184 pp., $52.95 h/b.     

The Effect of Family Structure and Family Functioning on Adolescents' Perceptions of Intimate Time Spent with Parents,Siblings, and Peers

In previous research, family structure variables have been operationalized as family size, birth order, sibling spacing, and sibling density. These structure variables have been linked to parental strictness, reasonableness, and supportiveness [J. S. Kidwell (1981), Number of Siblings, Sibling Spacing, and Birth Order: Their Effects on Perceived Parent–Adolescent Relationships, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 43, pp. 315–333]. Other research has drawn attention to the link between the amount of time adolescents spend with parents and peers and the influence of family relations variables—intensity, duration, and frequency of conflicts. [R. Montemayor (1982), The Relationship Between Parent–Adolescent Conflict and the Amount of Time Adolescents Spend Alone and with Parents and Peers, Child Development, Vol. 53, pp. 1512–1519]. More recent research has related family structure (family size, sibling spacing, and gender) effects to the amount of time adolescents spend with parents, a measure of relationship quality, and a set of measures of discipline [R. A. Richardson et al. (1986), Parent–Child Relationships in Early Adolescence: Effects of Family Structure, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 48, pp. 805–811]. To date, the questions asked by researchers have not simultaneously explored whether it is the family relations or the family structure variables that contribute most powerfully to the amount of time that female and male adolescents spend with family members and peers. In this research adolescents were asked to report the amount of time they spend with their mother, father, siblings, and peers, and to respond to a questionnaire that has three factors that define family functioning: Parenting Style (democratic decision making), Intimacy, and Conflict [P. Noller et al. (1992), Parent and Adolescent Perceptions of Family Functioning: A Comparison of Clinic and Nonclinic Family, Journal of Adolescence, Vol. 15, pp. 101–115]. The analyses revealed that complex and interpretable family structure and family functioning factors differentially influence whether males and females spend time with family members and peers.     

Public Management Decision Making: Effects of Decision Content

One obvious aspect of public management decisions and decision making has largely escaped attention—decision content. We examine the effects of decision content by asking the following questions for budget cutback and information technology decisions: How does content affect the time required for decision making? How does content affect who participates? How does content affect the decision criteria employed? How does content affect the information quality used in the decision-making process and red tape? The results suggest that information technology and budget cutback decisions differ in important ways. For information technology decisions, cost-effectiveness is not a significant criterion, average decision time is much longer, and decisions are generally viewed as permanent and stable. For cutback decisions, cost-effectiveness is a significant criterion, decisions are made much more quickly, and they are viewed as unstable and changeable. Surprisingly, decision content does not appear to affect the number of participants.