The demise of Communism has not only affected Eastern Europe but also the countries of the West where a far-reaching examination of political and economic systems has begun. This collection of essays by internationally renowned scholars of political theory from Europe and the United States explores both the concept and the reality of civil society and its institutions.

Michael Walzer has been a permanent faculty member at the School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton since 1980. He is an editor of Dissent and a contributing editor of The New Republic, and has published among numerous worksThe Company of Critics (1988) andInterpretation and Social Criticism (1987).

Part I: The Concept of Civil Society
Part II: The Communitarian Approach
Part III: Economic Policy and Social Justice
Part IV: The Internationalization of Politics and Economics and the Challenge of Nationalism, Immigration and Minority Conflict
Part V: European Socialism and American SocialReform

Contributors: M. Walzer, T. Nardin, J. Cohen, K. Nielsen, T. Strong, J. Elshtain, A. Etzioni, W.Galston, T. Pinkard, P. Selznick, O. Kallscheuer, E. Altvater, J. Faux, O. Hahn, J. Strasser, G.Frankenberg, W. Sullivan, P. Glotz, M. Cohen, E. Hobsbawm, A. Wolfe, M. Hajek, N.Birnbaum, C. Mouffe, D. Motchane and J. Santamaria