January 31, 2017
The common critique of media- and ratings-driven politics envisions democracy falling hostage to a popularity contest. By contrast, the following book by Hungarian sociologist Peter Csigo reconceives politics as a speculative Keynesian beauty contest that alienates itself from the popular audience it ceaselessly targets. Political actors unknowingly lean on collective beliefs about the popular expectations they seek to gratify, and thus do not follow popular public opinion as it is, but popular public opinion about popular public opinion.
January 31, 2017
The essays in the book, edited by M. Mark Stolarik, professor of history at the University of Ottawa, compare the Czech Republic and Slovakia since the breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993. The papers deal with the causes of the divorce and discuss the political, economic and social developments in the new countries. This is the only English-language volume that presents the synoptic findings of leading Czech, Slovak, and North American scholars in the field.

