Editor’s Introduction

Arien Mack Editor’s Introduction IN 1 9 8 8 , SOCIAL RESEARCH INITIATED A SERIES OF RECURRING ISSUES on Central and East Europe, which then was part of the extended Soviet empire. Our intention at the time was to publish the writings of intellectuals and social scientists from the region who, because of the tight control of the press then in place, were largely unknown in the West and thus not familiar to most of our readers. Not long after the publication of the first two issues in the series, the situation in the region dramatically changed-in 1990 the communist states collapsed and the transition to democracy began. As a consequence, we shifted our focus to the transition that was then under way, and the next five issues in the series addressed that subject. By 2002, when we published the tenth ofthese issues, the rationale for continuing to publish a series focused on Central and East Europe no longer made sense. The changes in the region seemed far enough along that they did not demand entire issues focused exclusively on them. Although we remained committed to continuing to publish articles by authors from the region about what is occurring there, we no longer believed that isolating them in special issues was appropriate. With the current issue, our series on “Transitions” sharply changes its focus. In this eleventh issue in the series, we turn our atten­ tion to the transition to democracy that followed the collapse of the apartheid regime in South Africa. The issue was originally to be a cele­ bration of this transition 10 years after it began (in 1994), but given the time it takes to organize an issue, it turns out that we are celebrat­ ing that transition 11 rather than 10 years later. Readers of this issue Editor’s Introduction v familiar with the transitions in Central and East Europe will note many important difference between those transitions and what has occurred and is occurring in South Africa. In fact, we hope some time in the future to publish an issue that compares not only the transitions in these two parts of the world but those occurring elsewhere as well. Before that, however, our Spring 2006 issue will address the transition now occurring in China, which is probably the most unique of all the transitions to which we so far have devoted issues. Neither the present issue on the transition in South Africa nor the forthcoming issue on China would have been possible without the collaboration of knowledgeable and generous guest editors. I am enor­ mously grateful to Ahmed Bawa, the guest editor of this issue, for all the work he did to make this issue possible, and I am deeply grateful to have had this occasion to become his friend. Arien Mack vi social research ...