Stubborn Structures: Reconceptualizing Post-Communist Regimes

The editor of this book has brought together contributions designed to capture the essence of post-communist politics in East-Central Europe and Eurasia. Rather than on the surface structures of nominal democracies, the nineteen essays focus on the informal, often intentionally hidden, disguised and illicit understandings and arrangements that penetrate formal institutions. These phenomena often escape even the best-trained outside observers, familiar with the concepts of established democracies. Contributors to this book share the view that understanding post-communist politics is best served by a framework that builds from the ground up, proceeding from a fundamental social context. The book aims at facilitating a lexical convergence; in the absence of a robust vocabulary for describing and discussing these often highly complex informal phenomena, the authors wish to advance a new terminology of post-communist regimes. Instead of a finite dictionary, a kind of conceptual cornucopia is offered. The resulting variety reflects a larger harmony of purpose that can significantly expand the understanding the “real politics” of post-communist regimes. Countries analyzed from a variety of aspects, comparatively or as single case studies, include Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures List of Tables Editor’s Preface PART I. Conceptual Frameworks Freeing Post-Soviet Regimes from the Procrustean Bed of Democracy Theory Henry E. Hale The System Paradigm Revisited: Clarification and Additions in the Light Of Experiences in the Post-Communist Region János Kornai Neopatrimonialism in Post-Soviet Eurasia Oleksandr Fisun Towards a Terminology for Post-communist Regimes Bálint Magyar PART II. Actors of Power Putin’s Neo-Nomenklatura System and its Evolution Nikolay Petrov Republic of Clans: The Evolution of the Ukrainian Political System Mikhail Minakov Is Belarus a Classic Post-Communist Mafia State? Uladzimir Rouda The Romanian Patronal System of Public Corruption László Nándor Magyari PART III. Techniques and Tools The Russian Party System Zoltán Sz. Bíró The Belarusian Non-Party Political System: Government, Trust and Institutions, 1990–2015 Andrei Kazakevich Illiberal State Censorship: A Must-have Accessory for Any Mafia State Miklós Haraszti Disarming Public Protests in Russia: Transforming Public Goods into Private Goods Dumitru Minzarari: PART IV. Wealth and Ownership The Institution of Power and Ownership in the Former U.S.S.R: Origin, Diversity of Forms, and Influence on Transformation Processes Andrey Ryabov Russia’s Network State and Reiderstvo Practices: The Roots to Weak Property Rights Protection after the post-Communist Transition Ilja Viktorov From Free Market Corruption Risk to the Certainty of a State-Run Criminal Organization (using Hungary as an example) Bálint Magyar PART V. Contrasts and Connections Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine as Post-Soviet Rent-Seeking Regimes Alexei Pikulik The Structure of Corruption: A Systemic Analysis Sarah Chayes The New East European Patronal States and the Rule-of-Law Kálmán Mizsei Parallel System Narratives—Polish and Hungarian Regime Formations Compared Bálint Magyar List of Contributors Index Appendix

About the Author :
Henry E. Hale is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. Bálint Magyar is Research Fellow at CEU Democracy Institute, working on the subject of patronalism in post-communist countries. He was a member of the Hungarian Parliament (1990-2010). As a Minister of Education (1996-1998; 2002-2006) he initiated and carried out reforms in public and higher education.

Review :
"The Hungarian sociologist Bálint Magyar, who created the concept of the 'post-Communist mafia state,' has just finished editing a new collection of articles called 'Stubborn Structures: Reconceptualizing Post-Communist Regimes' (to be published by C.E.U. Press early this year). In one of his own pieces in the collection, using Russia as an example, Magyar describes the Mafia state as one run by a 'patron' and his 'court'—put another way, the boss and his clan—who appropriate public resources and the institutions of the state for their private use and profit." "All in all, this is a wonderful collection of essays, a fertile marriage between Hale and Magyar with many splendid applications of their theories to many interesting countries and far-reaching implications for countries beyond the former USSR and East European post-communist world, and not only for China, but also for the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and the emergent trend to limit the separation of branches of power even in countries we normally label as liberal democracies (like Trump’s vision of the United States)." "Auf der politischen Ebene diskutiert der Band die Genese und die Funktionsweisen au-toritärer Herrschaft im Postkommunismus. Die Wege führten nach 1989/91 nicht in die Demokratie, aber es ging doch weiter in Richtung Divergenz. Die Uniformität der kommunistischen Ära ist in unserer autoritären Epoche passé. Dennoch sind die politischen Systeme der Region auf unterschiedliche Weise durch patrimoniale Strukturen, regionale „Clans“ und fehlende Rechtsstaatlichkeit geprägt. Die enge Steue-rung politischer Parteien, die Kontrolle von Wahlen und die Zensur treten als weitere Merkmale hervor. Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt des Bandes liegt in der Analyse postkommunistischer Wirt-schaftsstrukturen. Wiederum zeigt sich das Erbe der Vergangenheit: einerseits in der Kon-tinuität der Eliten und andererseits in der engmaschigen Verknüpfung zwischen Macht und (prekärem) Eigentum. Als Gemeinsamkeit lässt sich die Entstehung von Rentenökonomien beobachten, deren Erträge insbesondere der politischen Klasse und ihren Verbündeten zu-fließen." "All contributors, apart from Hale, come from post-communist countries, making this edited volume a forum for scholars with a deep personal knowledge of the region and an eye for details that may well escape an outside observer... A significant attempt to advance the understanding of post-communist regimes and an ambitious step towards a new conceptual framework to better describe countries increasingly thought to be no longer in transition to democracy." "Свою главную задачу продвижения новой аналитической рамки для изучения посткоммунистических режимов книга, безусловно, выполняет. Предлагаемый коллективом авторов подход, в центре которого стоит изучение неформальных структур и практик лично мне кажется достаточно продуктивным. Действительно было бы наивно пытаться некритически применять западные концепты для анализа постсоветской политики. Вполне можно согласиться с Г. Хейлом в том, что рецензируемый сборник «углубляет наше понимание посткоммунистических политик», а значит, он может быть смело рекомендован для прочтения всем, интересующимся проблемами посткоммунизма."