"Since the end of the Cold War, a virtual army of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from the United States, Britain, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe have flocked to Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. These NGOs are working on such diverse tasks as helping to establish competitive political
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parties, elections, and independent media, as well as trying to reduce ethnic conflict. This important book is among the few efforts to assess the impact of these international efforts to build democratic institutions. The case studies presented here provide a portrait of the mechanisms by which ideas commonly associated with democratic states have evolved in formerly communist states, revealing conditions that help as well as hurt the process." (Publisher description)
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"The Companion Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African Film is a unique, one volume work which illuminates a fascinating variety of cinema which is little known outside its own area. The Encyclopedia is divided into nine chapters, each written by a leading scholar in the field. Each chapter
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covers the history and major issues of film within that area, as well as providing bibliographies of the leading films, directors and actors. The areas covered are: Central Asia, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, The Magreb, Palestine, Turkey. It contains more than 60 black and white photographs of featured films, includes references and suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter, and the volume concludes with comprehensive name, film and general indexes." (Publisher description)
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"The ethnic factor has a very strong influence on the attitude of the respondents to the mass media and, in particular, to television. As is evident from the data in tables 2 and 3, the Central TV chanel (Ostankino TV) is far ahead of the television centres of Russia and Kazakhstan as regards the de
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gree of confidence in the objectivity of its information and as regards popularity. It is clear that the professionalism and technical facilities of the competing TV centres are weighty factors here. Nevertheless, the Kazakhs among the respondents are in no doubt as to the superiority of the Republican TV service. Kazakhstan TV is 3-4 times less popular among the population of Russian nationality and other nationalities." (Page 5)
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