Constructing the Limits of Europe: Identity and Foreign Policy in Poland, Bulgaria, and Russia since 1989

This comparative study harks back to the revolutionary year of 1989 and asks two critical questions about the resulting reconfiguration of Europe in the aftermath of the collapse of communism: Why did Central and East European states display such divergent outcomes of their socio-political transitions? Why did three of those states—Poland, Bulgaria, and Russia—differ so starkly in terms of the pace and extent of their integration into Europe?

Rumena Filipova argues that Poland’s, Bulgaria’s...