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This study of cultural and ideological aspects of educational change presents the case of state school teachers of English in Slovakia in the immediate post-1989 period. It considers the problems they face in the successful management of rapid change in their field, at the same time examining the implications of their situation for teacher education and support programmes in the region and elsewhere. It is argued that the voices of teachers, who are expected to act as both recipients and agents of change, have often been overlooked in previous studies of this type, with the ideas of the educational planner or innovator tending to dominate. The views of older, more experienced teachers in particular have seldom been consulted, with the result that they are sometimes perceived as being 'resistant to change'. In addition, many studies of change fail to take into consideration strong cultural and ideological influences on educational practice: it is claimed that these are of particular importance in the context of post-communist societies opening their doors to ideas imported from the West. In this study, a combination of interview, focus group and classroom observation data allows the voices of different protagonists (including educational specialists) to emerge. Through the juxtaposition of different accounts of the effects of educational change, it can be shown that successful change management depends very much on teachers themselves, and on their ability to resolve tensions between different cultural and ideological traditions. The provision of support for teachers via published materials, educational projects or collaborative networks also needs to take such traditions into account.

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The Russian invasion of Chechnya in December 1994 represented the culmination of a crisis that was perceived to threaten the very foundations of federal security. The conflict is intrinsic to an understanding of post-communist Russia and this study identifies the issues behind the evolution of Russia's conflict with Chechnya, investigating why a political crisis was permitted to deteriorate into a full-scale war. Existing studies of the causes of the conflict contain little theoretical interpretation regarding the role of Russia's transitional status. Given that Russia has been undergoing democratisation throughout the duration of its contemporary struggle with Chechnya, it is pertinent to investigate the link between the process and the potential for internal conflict. Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder are the most notable advocates of the proposition that the characteristic instability of a transitional period greatly increases the likelihood of both international and intrastate war. They ascribe the increased risk of conflict to domestic political competition between old and new elites, who exploit nationalistic sentiments in order to mobilise popular support for their faction, facilitated by the weak institutionalisation of the democratising state. The lack of any formal regulatory mechanisms encourages abuse of power within state structures, as officials and members of the ruling elite cannot be held fully accountable to the electorate. Thus, in order to assess the impact of the transition process upon the deterioration of Russian-Chechen relations and provide a more rigorous theoretical framework against which to examine the causes of the war, existing models of transition, particularly the democratisation and war thesis, are analysed and applied to the case-study of Russian decision-making with regards to Chechnya. The persistent crisis is investigated within the context of the Federation's transition away from communist rule, focusing on the extent of any potential correlation between the Russian democratisation project and its violent struggle with a constituent part. The study reveals that the conflict is attributable to both the democratisation project and the wider concept of systemic transformation, and conclusions are drawn on the process of post-communist democratic transition.

Biliana Velkova-The Musical is a personal story about coming of age within two distinct ideologies, communism and capitalism and the impact of immigration and assimilation. It also gives a glimpse of my two worlds and my navigation between them. And lastly, I hope that it adds to our collective memory of communism, no matter what the reality of it was. My project becomes part of the dialogue that is currently surfacing around the relevance of post communist realities and discourse.

Biliana Velkova-The Musical is a personal story about coming of age within two distinct ideologies, communism and capitalism and the impact of immigration and assimilation. It also gives a glimpse of my two worlds and my navigation between them. And lastly, I hope that it adds to our collective memory of communism, no matter what the reality of it was. My project becomes part of the dialogue that is currently surfacing around the relevance of post communist realities and discourse.

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Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / Architecture and political power have related throughout history in various ways. The most prominent function of architecture, as well as other aesthetics, in the political realm has been to raise the national sentiment of a people. The aesthetics of architecture can be used to sell the ideas of a political system to the populace both by the creation of new architecture and the destruction of symbols contrary to the polity. The vehicle by which politics and architecture interrelate is shown to be the rhetoric surrounding the buildings. Exemplary of this is the nationalist period of Europe, when characters such as Stalin and Hitler manipulated aesthetics to develop national sentiment. Hence, in newly democratic Prague and Berlin we see a change in architecture and a rhetorical debate on the national value of styles, though the styles used in each case were not the same. Architectural style is therefore shown not to reflect a specific political theory, and national sentiment is again the key way in which architecture and politics relate. / Major, United States Army

This dissertation addresses generalized trust in Post-Communist Europe. I examine trust stressing two sets of factors: the impact of attitudes associated with cleavages coming out of transition to democracy, and the importance of informal interpersonal association over more formal, structured forms of association. I argue that the classic list of cleavages suggested by Lipset and Rokkan (1967) have less importance to trust since those cleavages developed under the communist one-party state and were therefore less connected to the party system. As a result, these classic cleavages did not have the same mobilization functions as they did in Western Europe. Instead, I argue that cleavages that have developed out of the transition to democracy and a free-market economic system bear greater importance to trust. I further argue that due to the experience of forced group association during the communist era, and lingering distaste for formal political participation, the familiar Western models of the benefits of social engagement underestimate the importance of informal association in the post-communist states. Informal association was a key component of survival during the communist era and continues to be a valuable means of conferring information and forming political judgments. The first contribution this dissertation makes is that it brings together theories of political cleavages with theories of trust and social capital development. The dissertation bridges the gap between societal divisions and the position of the individual within these divisions. A second contribution of the dissertation is the testing of established theories of formal social engagement in post-communist states. The secretive nature of association during the communist era differs greatly from the open nature of association in the West. Theories of trust and social capital development must take this fact into account when exploring post-communist states.