Journal Transition Studies Review

Editor Prof. Dr. Giorgio Dominese

E-ISSN 1614-4007 - ISSN 1614-4015

Publication Frequency 2 Issues per year

Aims and Scope

Transition Studies Research Network was founded in 2002 as CEEUN-Central Eastern European University Cooperation, with the aim to connect a group of experts and university faculty in a program of cooperation devoted to research programs and specialized international postgraduate and doctoral courses. The Network has grown fast and soon after the scientific “voice” was established with the Journal Transition Studies Review, published initially by the CEEUN, then by Egea-Bocconi University Press, then by Springer Wien-New York and finally by Transition Academia Press now the Publisher of our journals.
At the beginning, JTSR was focusing on transition in Central and Southeast Europe, interpreting CEEUN purely as a European network. Soon afterwards, the EU enlargement was achieved extending the aims and scope to differentiated forms of partnership with Russia, Ukraine, Caucasus, the Black Sea and Caspian Seas, Mediterranean regions and Near East. This approach had dramatically changed years ago, following a serious violation of the international laws and agreements by the Russian backed insurgency in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. The situation had been in some way normalized with the efforts of US negotiations with Russia.
The future is unpredictable and certainly the relations in this region with European Union and NATO but will be as before in the relations with Russia in this region. International Relations all over Europe in terms of foreign affairs, economy, financial cooperation and defence specifically are influenced by the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its advanced new technologies and innovative applications, from Quantum to Hypersonic jets up to 8-10 times the sound speed; from Artificial Intelligence and 5G telecommunications.
All what few years ago and even Einstein couldn’t discover in his advanced impressive evolutionary studies in physic and atomic sciences. These new frontiers will introduce a highly sophisticated defence industrial advancement, with applications and performances never before imagined. Transition Studies then will enlarge their horizon to include these discoveries and achievements that will determine and industrial deep reassessment of final production value chains but also in the traditional components and sophisticated sectors of new-tech “revolution”.
Let briefly look back to the First industrial revolution. After the mid-eighteenth century, Europe experienced an unprecedented period of expansion which goes by the name of “industrial revolution”. Among the causes of this phenomenon - which initially took hold in Great Britain and which definitively changed the appearance of the modern and contemporary world - we can indicate: the impressive demographic growth during the eighteenth century; the expansion of agricultural production, thanks to new cultivation techniques such as mixed agriculture; the diffusion of the system of enclosures, against one. In fact, the last decades of the eighteenth century are the direct consequence of the birth of modern industry, which is characterized by the large-scale use of machines powered by mechanical energy; by the intensive use of fossil fuels as sources of energy and materials that they are not found in nature (such as metal alloys) and due to the progressive organization of work within the factory. From the carbon coke process to the James Watt steam engine (1736-1819), the Industrial Revolution can therefore expand into all over Europe.
The “transition studies” then are not belonging to the present but are part of the full history and growth in the world we live. From the firth to the Second and Third “revolutions”, respectively pushed on by other dramatic events tied to the first and second World Wars, with the introduction of the telegraph and engines for cars, truck, trains since before, all developed as well for the first world war. Then the third with the advent of the efficient airplanes and the new weaponry of high destructive capabilities. It was a tragedy with millions of killed soldiers and civilians. real tragedies and the toll in human lives was horribly enormous.
The conclusion of the second World War, with the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, singed the end but also the moment of slowly moving on reconciliation and peace, that is still going on, even if with conflicts exploded in various part of the globe but never again as much as the holocaust of soldiers and civilians, also for reason of races and religions. It was in 1945 the moment of saying never again, even if the conflicts in China, Middle East, Vietnam, North Africa, Afghanistan, African civil wars and Balkans, just to mention some references and call to our memories. But we have to tote also the more geopolitical doctrines and reasons that had motivated the wars in the past century and in part as well in these first 20 years of the XXII century.
A “geopolitical” vision and approach by an Italian great specialist on this fields will help us to understand the complexities and the permanent risks of other deflagrations. Journal Transition Studies Review matters.
Geopolitics, by Carlo Jean - Enciclopedia del Novecento II Supplemento- Treccani editions, Rome(1998) - http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/geopolitica_%28Enciclopedia-del-Novecento%29/
Summary: 1. Introduction. 2. Definitions of geopolitics and classification of geopolitical theories. a) General considerations. b) Geopolitics and environmental determinism. c) Geopolitics and political geography. d) Geopolitics and geostrategy. e) Geopolitics and geoeconomics. f) Definition and contents of geopolitics. 3. Precursors and history of geopolitical thought until the end of the bipolar world. a) The precursors. b) The birth of modern geopolitics: Ratzel and Kjellén. c) Continental geopolitical thinking. d) Theories of maritime and aerospace powers. e) The theories of peninsular power. f) The regional and multipolar conceptions. g) French geopolitics. h) South American geopolitics. i) Geopolitical idealism. l) Considerations on the geopolitics of the twentieth century. 4. The Italian geopolitics. a) From the dawn to the Risorgimento. b) The geopolitics of liberal Italy and the fascist regime. c) The geopolitics of the cold war. 5. Contemporary geopolitics. a) Globalist theories. b) Multipolar theories. c) Binary theories. d) Anarchist theories. e) Italian post-Cold War geopolitics. 6. Geopolitical factors and methods used by geopolitics. a) Permanent factors. b) Variable factors. c) Approaches, methods and techniques. □ Bibliography
Well, I closed this window on the “transition” past as we have to look at the future and then to our transition studies today. CEEUN-Central Eastern European University Network was launched with a seminar in Vienna, hosted by the Austrian Institute of Economic Research. The first meeting took place at the Institution that was founded by Friedrich August von Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, two great thinkers and economists: the Austrian Institute for Economic Research-WiFo. Now the scenario is completely different.
From 2005 on, a worldwide regional approach looking to Asia, Latin America, Eurasia and Great Middle East has been implemented. TSRN-Transition Studies Research Network has inherited from the previous CEEUN the “aims and scope” which were recently integrated. In the last ten years Transition Studies Research Network has progressively involved more than 400 internationally well-known member partners and 95 university departments, institutes and research centres independently engaged in many areas and programs.
The scientific interests and fields covered are: Europe and the World, future approach to EU enlargement, global governance economic, financial and policy framework and impact, where the focus would be mainly on growth theories, innovation and human capital, cultural and intellectual heritage, main advanced industrial sectors technologies, investments, international affairs, foreign policy choices and security, monetary policy and main currency areas, banking and insurance, development and area studies, social policies, environment and climate, culture and society, juridical and law studies, regional approach to global governance, peculiarities and critical challenges.
The future transition to open economy and institutional reforms, political and strategic issues and challenges, governance, European, Mediterranean, Asia-Pacific, Middle Eastern, Latin America and Africa perspectives are key topics of this high-ranking journals, ours as well include. Transatlantic and Asia-Pacific relations, security and international order represent, together with applied regional studies, another cornerstone of the Network’s activity and of Transition Studies Review’s contents as well as of and other Journal covering specific aspects and regions: the Journal of Global Policy and Governance (JGPG) The Network is deeply committed to a wide range of transition issues related to quantitative modelling and tools to analysing and researching economic, financial, strategic studies, social, cultural, environmental, juridical main issues.

Journal Transition Studies Review is currently indexed by EconLit, Scopus, Index Copernicus and RePEc.