JOHN PICKLES is the Earl N. Phillips Distinguished Professor of International Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. His main research interests are in regional economic transformation in Eastern Europe, ethnicity, violence and economic change, and critical theory and cultural studies. He has published numerous articles in these fields, as well as several monographs, the most recent of which is A History of Spaces: Cartographic Reason, Mapping, and the Geo-Coded World (2004).

• The Spirit of Post-socialism; J.Pickles PART 1: ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE, THE STATE AND VARIETIES OF CAPITALISM Leading Sectors and the Variety of Capitalism in Eastern Europe; B.Greskovits Transnational Actors and Corporate Governance in ECE; A.Vliegenthart On the State of the State: Czech Transformation and the Moment of Convergence in the Visegrad Region; J.Drahokoupil Corporate Control Models in Russian Companies and Business Integration; T.G.Dolgopyatova Diverging and Harmonizing of Corporate Governance in Russia; S.Mizobata PART 2: SOCIAL MOBILIZATION AND ECONOMIC TRANFORMATION State-Society Relations in Belarus; K.Haiduk Labour Markets and Trade Unions in Four New Member Countries of the European Union; M.Congiu Cultural Capital, State Regulation and Tourism in Post-Socialist Bulgaria; K.Ghodsee State Policies, Uneven Development and Environmental Regulation in Urban and Rural Lithuania; J.Maciulyte Building a Social Cause in Post-Communist Countries: The case of the Ecology in the Czech Republic; S.Devaux Informal Practice, Cultural Capital and Politics in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania; Å.B.Grødeland Conclusion: State, Society and Hybrid Post-Socialist Economies; J.Pickles