What has Eastern Europe taught us about the democratisation literature (and vice versa)?

The relationship between Eastern Europe and democratisation studies so far has been highly asymmetric. In contrast to the vast contribution, both in d ata and theory, of Eastern Europe to the democratisation literature, the la tter has been of only modest use to the understanding of the democratisatio n processes in post-communist Europe. Despite the growing number of empiric ally grounded assessments, most notably of degrees of democratic consolidat ion within East-Central Europe, there is still very little agreement on wha t exactly is democratic transition and consolidation or on what explains th e seemingly widening gap between East-Central Europe on the one hand and th e Balkans and post-Soviet republics on the other hand. We believe that at l east part of the answer lies in two underdeveloped topics of the democratis ation literature: state and nation-building (the 'third' transition) and th e international dimension. Moreover, to uncover the answers democratisation studies would greatly profit from expanding its disciplinary and geographi cal constraints, i.e., by integrating research from, most notably, national ism studies, international relations as well as democratisation studies of the 'first wave'.