Reviews for Adaptation and transformation in communist and post-communist systems

The average rating for Adaptation and transformation in communist and post-communist systems based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-02-08 00:00:00 Jontor Wae Professor Michael Schatzberg analyzes African politics and the relationship of the state with regard to African society. He does an in-depth analysis of the structures of eight African states, that he calls middle Africa, by using primary sources such as daily newspapers, presidential speeches and interviews. He finds, among other revelations, that African governments have a paternalistic relationship with their citizens, and then he goes on to lay out what he calls a moral matrix of legitimate governance in Africa. Though his argument is one based on the concept of political culture theory, I find his analysis to be heavily reliant on primary sources that aren’t truly representative of a free and independent press. Having read this book I now have a greater appreciation of cultural context when doing a comparative analysis. The main question that stuck out to me in this book is whether the field of comparative politics is well equipped to analyze and replicate political institutions by simply reproducing successful past endeavors or outcomes. The author’s analysis of the context of political legitimacy in Africa with respect to democracy is very insightful. But, I think that his argument of the “father-chief” is conjecture, and suffers from omitted-variable bias. Most of the regimes that he cites, such as Felix Houphouet-Boigny’s Cote D’Ivoire, were in fact autocratic regimes that had control of the media and wanted to perpetuate the idea of paternalism. This doesn’t necessarily mean that this paternalism was real. Secondly, these leaders were in fact the founding fathers of their countries. Just like most of the West holds leaders like George Washington, Napoleon, and Charles De Gaulle in high esteem, these leaders’ attempts to capitalize on the same type of propaganda doesn’t prove the existence of this relationship. Political culture theory provides great context for an analysis, but in my opinion doesn’t give a causal explanation for political outcomes. I say this because culture is not fixed, and depending on the types of institutions that are available within a society can be changed over time. In sum, I don’t discount the importance of political culture within context but I find its causal claims in this book to not be built on a solid foundation.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-12-28 00:00:00 Kevin Hill History repeats itself, and the history the United States is repeating here in the early 21st Century is the period from 1865 to 1900 that historians often refer to as the Gilded Age. All the rights and freedoms promised by Abraham Lincoln were thrown into the dustbin of history by the alleged losers of the Civil War. Corporations became the beneficiaries of the war's only victories (the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments) and the reaper of America's new industrial fortunes at the expense of the people who fought, suffered and died in the war. It was an Age of Betrayal and Jack Beatty goes into great historical detail in describing how it unfolded and how it set the stage for the New Deal era. The Gilded Age has always been a mystery to me, so this book was the missing puzzle piece between the Civil War and the New Deal. It is a terribly depressing tale, but one that every American should know if they wish to understand what happened after Lincoln died and what's going on now here in 2013. The only reason it doesn't get five stars is because it is an intense book, written with an academic level that sometimes lost me in its diction and paragraph structure. Beatty is a very accomplished writer, and his command of the subject is absolute within the pages, but sometimes I felt lost amid the details and names. But the book is filled with too much historical knowledge to put down. It's a fascinating read. His humanitarian perspective is refreshing in a world dominated by corporate propaganda, and after reading this book, you know where the roots of corporate oligarchy in America begin.