Simon Smith is a research lecturer in the Centre for Contemporary European Studies at the University of Paisley. His current research interests cover civil society, collective action, local culture, and local and regional government in Central and Eastern Europe.
'The book serves as a good introduction to Czech and Slovak sociology and presents an interesting account of the role of Czech and Slovak sociologists in the ongoing process of transformation, contrasting functional sociologies of an earlier era with activist sociologies of transition.' - Progress in Human Geography 'Local Communities and Post-Communist Transformation represents a set of solid empirical research findings, enlivened by Simon Smith's more wide-ranging ideas, which will be of interest to specialists on the Czech Republic and Slovakia, local politics and micro-economic transformation.' - SEER