Explaining the Why of the Why: A Comment on Fish's “Determinants of Economic Reform in the Post-Communist World"
Explaining the Why of the Why: A Comment on Fish's “Determinants of Economic Reform in the Post-Communist World"

Summary/Abstract: M. Steven Fish has made an important contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of economic reform in postcommunist societies. By initiating a systematic comparison of the entire universe of cases, he has found what is most certainly a significant relationship between the inaugural elections of 1990 and the commitment to sustained economic reform. Those countries that managed to cast aside their communist parties from the outset introduced and sustained meaningful economic reforms. Those that did not permitted the rent-seekers of the previous era to establish themselves in power and prevent or subvert economic reform. His data show that by 1995 it was already possible to see the contours of two very different kinds of postcommunist experience. [...]

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