The sudden collapse of communism stimulated both the rapid emergence of fledgling democracies and scholarly attention to the post-communist transition. These newly democratized parliaments have been described as "parliaments in adolescence".

This book identifies six parliaments which exemplify the wide range of developments in the new post-communist political systems, from the stable consolidated democracies to the less stable and more authoritarian states, within which their respective parliaments function.

Finally the post-communist parliaments are compared with the presumptively more established west European parliaments. This book bridges the usual gap in research between the post-communist parliaments and more "normal" democratic parliaments to develop a common legislative research perspective on both new and established parliaments.

This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Legislative Studies.