Showing papers in "Comparative politics in 2002"

Islam and democracy in the Middle East: The impact of religious orientations on attitudes toward democracy in four Arab countries

Abstract: Discussions about democracy in the Arab world often include attention to the political orientations of ordinary men and women. In particular, questions are raised about whether popular attitudes and beliefs constitute an obstacle to democratization, possibly because the religious traditions that predominate in most Arab countries inhibit the emergence of a democratic political culture. But while questions are frequently raised about the views of ordinary citizens, about what is sometimes described as "the Arab street," answers are most often based on impressionistic and anecdotal information. Indeed, some analyses appear to be influenced by western stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims. By contrast, systematic empirical inquiries into the nature, distribution, and determinants of political attitudes in the Arab world

The Institutionalization of Electoral and Party Systems in Postcommunist States

Abstract: The development of electoral systems and political parties is essential for democracies to function well. Therefore, the institutionalization of viable parties within wellestablished electoral rules is critical to the consolidation of democracy in the former Communist world. While the need for such institutionalization is widely recognized, there is disagreement on the capacity of the postcommunist countries to entrench electoral systems and parties. This article addresses institutionalization through the analysis of electoral and party systems in East Europe and the former Soviet Union and provides comparison to earlier transitions in western Europe, southern Europe, and Latin America. It evaluates stability and change by placing the development of party systems in the theoretical debate about the maturity of the postcommunist democratic process, examining the regulations that govern elections and party behavior, appraising voter-party alignment in terms of electoral volatility, and assessing party fractionalization in terms of the number of effective parties competing in the new democracies.

The renaissance of political culture or the renaissance of the ecological fallacy

Abstract: "If within-system regressions do not differ from zero in all systems, but the total regression does differ from zero, the ecological correlation is spurious."I Adam Przeworski and Henry Teune in this quotation from their seminal study of comparative methodology alert readers to the risk of committing the classical ecological fallacy, first described by Robinson, when attempting to overcome one of the great challenges in comparative research, bridging the gap between micro and macro levels of analysis. As is well known, Robinson demonstrated that patterns found at the (macro) level of the system may contradict the true patterns found at the (micro) within-system level.2 Advances made by Gary King toward solving the ecological inference problem work well when individual-level data are absent or difficult or costly to obtain, as long as one develops a data base of many, relatively homogeneous ecological units.3 But in recent years researchers who have rich individuallevel data bases have been aggregating their data at the national level. Not everyone is persuaded of the validity of their comparisons, however. For example, serious questions have been raised about Ronald Inglehart's "postmaterialist values."4 The purpose of this article is to recall Przeworski and Teune's warning against a particular form of the ecological fallacy, the individualistic fallacy. The individualistic fallacy is the error "of incorrectly imputing to the higher order unit the aggregation of values of individuals."5 This article will reexamine the conclusions drawn by what may be the most important effort since Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba's The Civic Culture to bridge the micro-macro gap in comparative politics. In an impressively broad and influential body of research, Ronald Inglehart makes an explicit link between an aggregation of micro-level attitudes, denominated as political culture, and the macro-level variable of regime type.6 Specifically, Inglehart attempts to show that a particular form of political culture, civic culture, is strongly linked to the emergence and stability of democracy. He finds a direct causal connection between what he calls the civic culture syndrome, on the one hand, and democracy, on the other. The cornerstone of Inglehart's approach rests upon the variable of interpersonal trust. This variable is also central to Robert Putnam's explanation of democracy in Italy in Making Democracy Work.7 The logic of The Civic Culture was straightforward: no trust, no secondary associations, no genuine political participation, and no democracy. In other words, individuals in a society must trust each other in order to form and join civil society organizations. In the aggregate, then, societies undergird-

Party Competition in Post-Communist Europe: The Great Electoral Lottery

Abstract: This article suggests that the academic emphasis on rational choice and political-sociological approaches to party development has led to a misleading impression of convergence with Western patterns of programmatic competition and growing partisan identification in the Central European party political scene. As an alternative thesis, the author argues that the very character of ‘transition’ politics in Eastern Europe and the necessarily self-referential nature of the parliamentary game has structured party systems in those countries, and that the differences between the party systems in this region are critically related to experiences under communism (–a political-historical explanation). The paper argues that, in order to cope with a practical lack of public policy options in major areas such as the economy, parties have had little choice but to compete over operating ‘styles,’ rather than over substantive (ideologically based) programmatic alternatives. The development of parties incumbent in government since 1989 may be compared to the development of catch-all parties in Western Europe in terms of the competitive logic of weakening/ avoiding ideological positions in order to embrace a large constituency. However, successful parties in Eastern Europe lack the ‘baggage’ of an ideological past and the history of mass membership and a class or denominational clientele – their defining characteristic is that they try to appeal to all of the people all of the time.

Are All Semipresidential Regimes the Same? A Comparison of Premier-Presidential Regimes

Abstract: The transition to democracy in East Europe and the former Soviet Union has provided political scientists an opportunity to reexamine several old institutional debates. Similarly to the period of Latin American democratization in the 1970s, political scientists are currently exploring the impact of institutional design on the process of postcommunist democratization. Over the last ten years much has been written about electoral and party systems, the judiciary, and constitution making in East Europe and the former Soviet Union.' Perhaps no issue has received more attention than regime type. Numerous books and articles have focused squarely on the issue of postcommunist parliaments and presidencies.2 Other works have either compared the institutional choice of postcommunist countries to other regions or placed the issue within a broader theoretical perspective.3 The issue of regime type is important because in the opinion of most scholars it has an impact not only on the transition to but also on the consolidation and the maintenance of democracy.4 The choice of regime type has generally been regarded as lying between parliamentarism and presidentialism, and until recently most political scientists argued that a parliamentary regime was more conducive to democratization.5 Recent studies by John Carey, Scott Mainwaring, and Matthew Shugart have led to a reassessment of the advantages of presidentialism, but there is still no consensus on which regime type is superior.6 However, the postcommunist transition to democracy has demonstrated the popularity of the semipresidential regime. This type combines the institutions of presidential and parliamentary regimes. The term "semipresidentialism" was first coined by Maurice Duverger to describe the system of government established during the French Fifth Republic and has since been used to describe a host of countries that combine presidential and parliamentary institutions.7 Shugart and Carey refined the concept to emphasize the substantial differences among semipresidential regimes. They created a system of classification based on the distribution of power between the two executives, the president and the prime minister. Countries in which the prime minister exerts greater executive power are labeled premier-presidential regimes, while countries in which the president wields greater authority are known

Testing the Empowerment Thesis: The Participatory Budget in Belo Horizonte and Betim, Brazil

Abstract: Numerous political theorists and practitioners suggest participatory or deliberative democracy as a remedy to the ills of contemporary representative democracy: declining voter turnouts, increasing distrust in democratic politicians and processes, and declining levels of participation in organized civil society.1 They argue that these problems diminish when citizens become directly involved in public policymaking processes, especially at the local or grass-roots level where such processes seem more relevant to people's day-to-day lives. Empowerment is said to occur as initial involvement in one arena of democracy spills over into further participation in other arenas.2

The Hidden Logic of Candidate Selection for Chilean Parliamentary Elections

Abstract: The political consequences of Chile's two member district (binominal) parliamentary electoral system have been the subject of much academic and political debate.' Most analyses of the electoral formula have focused on its consequences for the country's party system.2 Nonetheless, little has been written on how the system affects parliamentary candidate selection and electoral list composition. The process of candidate selection is little understood by Chileans and students of Chilean politics alike. Very little has been written on internal party processes in Chile or in Latin America generally. In addition, most studies of candidate selection focus on European parliamentary governments or the United States and are less relevant to Latin America's predominantly multiparty, presidential systems. This article makes some preliminary generalizations concerning the process of parliamentary candidate selection in Chile. It sets out the context of electoral reform and its connection to candidate selection and goes on to suggest some of the impediments to understanding the process in Chile. It then explores the actual mechanisms of candidate selection for legislative elections on three interrelated, yet analytically distinct, levels. First, it suggests what makes candidates attractive to political parties and analyzes how parties choose candidates. Second, it explores the rationale of party elites in forming pacts and coalitions and discusses the most important variables that determine which of the subpacts' constituent parties are awarded candidacies in which districts. Third, it analyzes the incentives that shape candidate selection within major coalitions and the way these coalitions determine the composition of national lists. It establishes generally applicable rules that govern candidate selection within coalitions and provides a schematic diagram of these rules. The final section provides evidence of these rules through empirical discussion of the candidate selection process, underscoring some of the paradoxes in candidate choice produced by this unique electoral system. Contrary to simplistic assumptions concerning the desire of parties and coalitions to maximize votes, a much more complex constellation of variables influences where and with which coalition partners candidates run. Leaders attempt to achieve a series of discrete objectives, many of which are contradictory and some of which are not particularly well thought out in terms of their political consequences. Maximizing

Orphaned by democracy: small industry in contemporary Mexico

Abstract: After introducing pharmaceutical patents in the 1990s, Brazil subsequently adjusted the patent system to ameliorate its effects on drug prices, while Mexico introduced measures that reinforce and intensify these effects. The different trajectories are due to the nature of the actors pushing for reform and the patterns of coalitional formation and political mobilization. In Brazil government demand for expensive, patented drugs made health-oriented patent reform a priority. The existence of an autonomous local pharmaceutical sector allowed the Ministry of Health to build a supportive coalition. In Mexico government demand made reforms less urgent, and transformations of the pharmaceutical sector allowed patent-holding firms to commandeer a reform project. The existence of indigenous pharmaceutical capacities can broaden the political coalitions underpinning health reforms.

War Transitions and the New Civilian Security in Latin America

Abstract: During the 1970s and 1980s Latin America and the Caribbean experienced some of the most notorious human rights violations of the late twentieth century. From the "disappearance" of thousands in Argentina, to the arrest and torture of one-fifth of Uruguay's adult population, to the infamous death squads of El Salvador and Guatemala, Latin America became synonymous with state violence under military rule. The sweeping onset of democracy in the past two decades makes it possible to examine crucial questions about the transformation of repressive security forces. Does democratization automatically democratize internal security forces that turned on their own citizens? Can police forces which were brutal, powerful, and unaccountable under authoritarian rule be supplanted by new security systems rooted in respect for citizen rights, elected civilian control, accountability, and professionalism? These questions highlight the importance of internal security forces-police forces, domestic intelligence agencies, and their controlling agents-rather than conventional military forces in the quality of political democracy. They also reflect important theoretical debates about democratic transitions and their relevance for the quality of citizens' everyday lives under democracy. Some scholars argue that democratization holds little possibility for significant changes in military and political power. Others argue that democratization leads to a reduction in military power and to more civilian security systems. Still others believe that outcomes are path-dependent, reflecting international factors or domestic processes during the transition period. These competing views offer very different answers to the question: does democratization change how states treat their citizens?

Global, Constitutional, and Partisan Determinants of Redistribution in Fifteen OECD Countries

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to examine how the pressures of globalization are mediated by the institutional and partisan configuration in fifteen OECD countries. Recently, much scholarship has probed for the effects of globalization on domestic policymaking. It runs the gamut from arguments that globalization will significantly erode the policymaking capacity of governments to arguments that the globalization thesis is seriously overstated and that globalization is not only not eroding the sovereignty and autonomy of states but may actually lead to a strengthening of traditional state structures.1 This article argues that pressures of globalization are systematically refracted through domestic political institutions. It will provide a theory as well as an empirical test that will demonstrate how variations in the configuration of domestic political structures affect the redistributive capacity of the state. Redistribution of incomes is typically achieved through taxation and transfer payments, such as sick pay, maternity pay, social retirement benefits, child or family allowances, unemployment compensation, and accident pay. Both of these tools of redistribution, taxation and transfer payments, are highly contested by political actors and are shaped by a variety of factors, three of which will be examined in detail in this article: the degree to which globalization affects these central tools of redistribution, the configuration of constitutional structures, including the number of governing parties, and the impact of partisan coloration. The various empirical manifestations of globalization, such as dramatic increases in trade, improvements in transportation technology, large migration flows, dramatic drops in capital controls and the corresponding increase in capital mobility, and quantum leaps in communication and transportation technology, have become familiar catchwords in this new millennium. Moreover, international organizations such as the World Trade Organization, dedicated to eradicate tariff and nontariff barriers to international trade, have become effective, if notorious, agents of globalization. The globalization thesis stands in stark contrast, however, to the rather established view that, precisely because some countries are more integrated into world markets, they have learned to adjust to these pressures by forging class compromises and by cushioning their societies from the ups and downs of international business cycles

Understanding the Third World Welfare State after Neoliberalism: The Politics of Social Provision in Chile and Mexico

Abstract: While much attention has been focused on the political foundations of social welfare regimes in the advanced industrial countries, less is known about the politics of social provision in underdeveloped areas, in Latin America in particular. Discussions highlight the fiscal constraints attendant upon free market economic reforms, questions of policy efficiency, and the political uses and abuses of antipoverty spending.1 This emphasis is jarring, however, in the face of a voluminous literature on the emergence of the first world welfare state that emphasizes interests (business, labor), institutions (federalism, corporatism), ideas and culture, social structure (development, industrialization), and politics (left or Catholic power).2 Moreover, the pressures of globalization and economic liberalization are not sufficient to justify the technocratic focus. Recent scholarship has demonstrated that even small or poor states have substantial capacity to govern markets and support welfare regimes.3 Finally, arguments that emphasize pressures for convergence around a minimalist social welfare regime in poor countries run afoul of an empirical reality of persistent difference.

Entrepreneurs, Democracy, and Citizenship in Turkey

Abstract: Business leaders and business associations are key political actors in late industrializing societies. The relationship between business and democracy has been a source of continued controversy in comparative studies of democratic transitions and democratic consolidation. In the traditional view, businessmen are typically interested in stability. Whenever considerations relating to stability come into conflict with political pluralism and democratic opening, they tend to swing in the direction of authoritarian solutions. However, more recent studies have drawn attention to the increasingly progressive or favorable role that business or entrepreneurial groups can play in the process of democratic transition and consolidation.1 Why did business interests, notably big business, tend in the past to favor-or at least not to reject outright-authoritarian practices, while they have given growing support to liberal democracy and political pluralism in recently emerging second and third wave democracies? Turkey is an interesting case to examine from a comparative standpoint. It is an example of the second wave democracy. A broadly open polity has existed, albeit with certain interruptions, over a period of four decades, yet the democratic order falls considerably short of being fully consolidated judged by the norms of westernstyle liberal democracies. The Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen's Association (TUSIAD) is a voluntary interest association representing big business and large conglomerates in Turkey. The segment of the business community represented by TOSiAD has become increasingly vocal in recent years in favor of further democratic opening. Indeed, its recent publications and the pronouncements of its leaders in public have concentrated almost singlemindedly on legal and constitutional reforms. This position contrasts sharply with the earlier pattern in the 1970s and the 1980s, when the organization's efforts focused primarily on issues of economic reforms and largely evaded open discussion of issues relating to democratization and constitutional reform. Clearly, a number of challenging questions of wider interest from a comparative perspective emerges in this context. How can the striking shift in the preferences of the business community in the direction of participating in or even actively leading the prodemocratization coalition be explained? What does big busi

Low Tide after the Third Wave: Exploring Politics under Authoritarianism

Abstract: The investigation of democracy's \"third wave\" fueled a large political science research agenda. I When the spread of democratization slowed down, research turned to examine the consolidation of existing democracies.2 But studies of neither transition nor consolidation are suitable in exploring politics in contemporary authoritarian states, those states that survived the reordering of political power in eastern Europe, Latin America, and other regions. Original approaches that explicitly target the function and maintenance of authoritarianism can provide the means to understand the resilient systems left standing at the third wave's low tide. The four books reviewed here chart a new research area that complements the study of transitions away from authoritarianism with an exploration of why many contemporary authoritarian regimes last. They approach authoritarianism as a system of control and power that can be addressed distinctly from discussions of transition or regime change but that will naturally inform them. In the decade since the fall of the Soviet Union and Huntington's The Third Wave, scholars looking at nondemocratizing states in the Middle East, Central Asia, subSaharan Africa, East Asia, and elsewhere have tended to focus on a new democratic surge that would sweep up the cases they studied. The bulk of current political science research addresses politics through the narrowly defined frame of modern

The Significance of Variation in Local States: The Case of Twentieth Century China

Abstract: When I was conducting fieldwork on post-Mao taxation and public finance in China during the early 1990s, I was surprised to discover that county officials in Tianjin in the north were still using Maoist mass campaign tactics to deter tax evasion. I was even more surprised to discover that county officials in Guangdong in the south said they had never heard of such a thing, were appalled by it, and relied instead only on persuasion and nonconfrontational methods. In Tianjin county tax officials dragged convicted tax evaders onto a stage and detailed their crimes to an audience of a thousand fellow entrepreneurs and anyone else who cared to watch the "criticism session" on local television. Meanwhile, in Guangdong entrepreneurs attended small study sessions where they read about a few egregious cases of tax evasion. The two localities' methods of countering tax evasion illustrated that officials were dealing with social groups and with resistance in different ways. How could two such different approaches to the same problem of tax evasion exist side by side in the same governmental system, especially one that is usually assumed to have a powerful, homogenizing central government? In fact, such differences in local state practice are common across many policy areas, not simply taxation, in China. What are the sources of this variation in local state structure and practice, and what are its overall consequences for the implementation of central policy, for state-society relations, for state capacity, and even for the survival of the central state? Variation in local state structure and practice-local state variation, for short-is a neglected topic in political science. Local state structure is defined as the organization of local government, and local state practice is defined as the way local governments implement central policy and make and implement their own policy in the absence of higher-level guidance. In political science, local state structure and practice have until recently been discussed only as the objects of central government standardization efforts. For example, the classic studies of the formation of central states examine why and how patterns of intrastate difference were suppressed or erased rather than how they developed.1 The standard narrative of state formation emphasizes processes of bureaucratization, centralization, and homogenization that eliminated local differences of many kinds.2 This approach loses sight of the ways

Conflict Management and Elite Habituation in Postwar Democracy: The Case of Mozambique

Abstract: In 1992, when Mozambique's Frelimo-led government signed a peace agreement with the Renamo rebels and put an end to sixteen years of civil war, it was hard to imagine a more unlikely candidate for successful democratization.' Officially the poorest country in the world, Mozambique lacked nearly all of the social, economic, and political factors usually held to be conducive to democracy and had spent virtually all of its postindependence existence immersed in a brutal domestic conflict. Now nearly a decade after the Rome peace accord, Mozambique stands as one of the world's most unlikely postwar democratization success stories. What accounts for the durability of the postwar political settlement? Is Mozambique's democracy on the road to consolidation?

Democratization and Urban Bias in Postcommunist Russia

Abstract: For the last twenty-five years urban bias has been one of the most prevalent theoretical frameworks for analyzing urban-rural relations in developing nations. Urban bias is commonly thought to be of greater intensity and duration in nondemocratic nations, in particular one party systems.' As post-Soviet states democratize and open their political systems to competition, urban bias would be expected to be more difficult to maintain. In particular, Robert Bates hypothesized that in "nations with competitive party systems, political competition for votes leads to a shift in policy in favor of rural interests."2 According to this argument, rural groups in competitive political systems are able to organize for the purpose of seeking and mobilizing electoral support, thus influencing policy in ways that are advantageous to rural interests. Moreover, rural interests and the rural population at large present opportunities for urban interests to build support through alliances. In seeking out rural alliances, urban groups would court rural interests and make policy concessions that benefit the rural sector in exchange for electoral and political support. Why has urban bias remained, and even intensified, during increased political competition and democratization in post-Soviet Russia? Why has democratization been accompanied by a significant decline in the ability of rural interests to influence policy in ways that are beneficial to them? Why has democratization in Russia, apparently paradoxically, been accompanied by economic policies and policy outcomes that are characteristic of urban bias in noncompetitive one party states? This article, first, analyzes aspects of the urban bias problem that have not been previously considered and, furthermore, have not been applied to post-Soviet states. The importance of political cohesion and differences over ideology have not received the emphasis they deserve, thus creating a theoretical vacuum for understanding rural politics in postcommunist nations. In particular, four factors have been ignored: ideological differences between the state and rural interests, the ideological compatibility of rural interests, the internal coherence of rural interests, and the nature of political alliances formed by rural groups. This article, second, analyzes peasant-state relations in postcommunist Russia, bearing in mind what the analysis suggests about Russian democratization. Rural political weakness due to ideological differences and lack of cohesion

Antiminority Riots in Unified Germany: Cultural Conflicts and Mischanneled Political Participation

Abstract: Two large antiforeigner riots in eastern Germany, at Hoyerswerda in September 1991 and at Rostock in August 1992, created a political sensation. They attracted far more attention, outcry, and veiled approval from political leaders than two thousand smaller assaults on foreigners that took place across unified Germany during those two years. Explanations of the riots in unified Germany and also much of the theoretical work on antiminority riots in other democratic systems have focused on three sets of causes: ethnonationalism, insecure ethnic identities, and racism; poverty, inequality, and competition between ethnic groups for scarce resources; and political elites' agitation of enmity to mobilize groups along ethnic lines.1 These analyses are flawed in two ways. First, they often treat riots as simply the most extreme manifestation of ethnic conflict and violence rather than as a qualitatitively different phenomenon. Because of their nature and their political significance, antiminority riots should be analyzed separately from other forms of ethnic conflict.2 Of course, violence is distinct from other forms of conflict in that it requires risky behavior, usually involves some confrontation with police, and has terrible consequences for its targets. Moreover, antiminority riots are a quite distinct form of ethnic violence. By antiminority riots, I mean sustained physical attacks on members of a subordinate ethnic minority group by large numbers of people who belong to the dominant ethnic group, are motivated by ethnic or racial animosity, and are not agents of the state.3 Hence antiminority riots differ from commodity riots by minority group members against property and police (often called race riots) and from hitand-run assaults by small groups against minority group members (racist violence). Moreover, antiminority riots in democratic settings have unusual political significance. Such riots often attract large numbers of approving adult spectators who are not evidently members of extreme nationalist or racist organizations. Hence politicians and news media may interpret the riots as indicators of widespread and salient ethnic antagonisms. Therefore, political reactions to antiminority riots can lead to major policy shifts, such as immigration restrictions and limitations on minority rights. Furthermore, because of the scale of the mobilization other perpetrators may try to imitate the attacks. At Hoyerswerda and Rostock crowds of many hundreds or several thousands of adults

The Architecture of Militancy: Workers and the State in Algeria, 1970-1990

Abstract: capital relations in late industrializing countries. How can labor's varying responses to privatization, subsidy reduction, and other reforms that undermine long-standing state-labor relationships be explained? Why do workers develop strong collective identities and strategies in some cases but not in others? Why does militancy remain focused on workplace issues in some cases while elsewhere it takes up broader social and political grievances? Moral economy and macrostructural analyses figure prominently in efforts to answer these questions. This article evaluates these two frameworks through an examination of state-labor relations in Algeria from the early 1970s through the late 1980s. Algeria is a case where both approaches might be expected to fare well. While its experience conforms to important moral economy and macrostructural expectations, it also confounds both frameworks. This article identifies these points of conflict and proposes an alternative that accounts more successfully for Algeria's pattern of state-labor relations. This alternative involves a historical institutionalist analysis that emphasizes the ways in which wage bargaining and other labor institutions distribute power and uncertainty across the work force. These institutions play a key role in shaping the formation of collective identities. Institutions established by the Algerian government helped to generate a wave of worker unrest in the middle and late 1970s, but these institutions also created divisions within the work force that prevented the rise of a politicized working class movement. New institutions in the late 1980s sparked even greater unrest, but these institutions bridged divisions and encouraged the development of a more unified and politicized labor movement.

Moving beyond Transition in China: Financial Reform and the Political Economy of Declining Growth

Abstract: The transformation of the world's command economies into market systems constitutes one of the greatest peaceful revolutions of the twentieth century. More debatable, however, is the extent to which this transformation in analytical terms should be treated as a singular phenomenon, a unique category of institutional change replete with its own particular challenges, maladies, and pathologies. Much of the scholarly work on transition-indeed, the very fact that there is a specific literature associated with postsocialist transition-is premised on precisely this notion of singularity. Within this context, debates have gone on to examine procedural issues of optimal pace (gradual and piecemeal or rapid and sweeping) and optimal property rights arrangement (full-scale privatization or some variant of state ownership). For all their vitality and passion, though, these debates share a certain backwardlooking quality. The clearest reference point in all discussions is socialism, the prior institutional arrangement that virtually everybody agrees is undesirable. Questions then turn on how best to distance a given system from that clear referent in the past. How can the politicization of economic activity so central to socialism be eliminated?1 How can societal groupings with a stake in the old system be countered, undercut, or otherwise reoriented so as to allow change to proceed?2 How can growth-inducing markets be allowed to emerge from the underbrush of an old order? When growth fails to emerge, explanations then frequently refer to persistent institutional legacies of the socialist past, insufficiently liberal economic policies, or frustratingly powerful antireform coalitions.3 In assuming the singularity of transition, scholarly studies, to the extent they pursue a comparative approach, draw comparisons almost exclusively from within the camp of formerly socialist systems (for example, Russia versus China or Poland versus Hungary). Rarely are comparisons between such systems and their developed and developing market economy counterparts considered relevant.4 This delineation of the appropriate bounds for comparison, however, carries with it certain implicit assumptions about causation. In other words, the delineation itself is predisposed toward certain kinds of explanations of economic outcomes while it is distanced from others. More