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The subject of this study is the presentation and the comparison of the democratic transition process in three East-Central European countries: Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The comparative analysis covers the constitution-making process, the electoral laws, the outcomes of the first democratic elections, the role of presidents, parliaments and governments, the relationships among them, and the way new parties made function these institutions in the first five years of the change of regimes. Some aspects of the common starting situation and the affects of the different social and political cultures on the orientation of these new democracies will also be examined. This text is a revisited version of the paper prepared for the XVI World Congress of the International Political Science Association in Berlin, 21-25 August 1994.