When the State Is a Problem

Abstract

After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transition. Edited by Michael McFaul, Kathryn Stoner-Weiss. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 272 pp., $60.00 (ISBN: 0-521-83484-8). After the Collapse of Communism by Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss discusses the lessons that can be drawn from the analysis of post-Soviet politics for comparative political theory and indirectly for transition policies. McFaul and Stoner-Weiss explicitly assume that postcommunist transformations are not merely illustrations of existing political theories. Rather, these cases can enlighten theoreticians and help them further develop the theories of democratic and market transitions. All the contributions to this edited volume are sensitive to historical details, but at the same time they try to test theoretical propositions drawn from the academic literature. The theoretical approach dominating the volume combines the strength of what has been typical of classical area studies and what has become increasingly common in more positively oriented comparative politics. In the Introduction to After the Collapse of Communism , McFaul and Stoner-Weiss explain the theoretical reasons for assembling these articles into one volume. They outline several assumptions intended to provide a common foundation for the book. One key assumption is that not all social changes are evolutionary. This assumption explains and justifies the failure of social sciences to foresee the break up of communism. A second key assumption is that political and socioeconomic institutions develop in a path-dependent way. This assumption acknowledges the possibility that institutional solutions rarely can be effectively transferred from one social context to another without undergoing significant changes in the way they function. After the Collapse of Communism has one dominant substantive concern: the examination of the state and its basic institutions as both an object of and as an actor in societal change. It is common …