Rebuilding Leviathan
Party Competition and State Exploitation in Post-Communist Democracies

This book examines how competing political parties rebuilt the state in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

Anna Grzymala-Busse (Author)

9780521873963, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 April 2007

296 pages, 25 tables
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.52 kg

"This is a model study: original in conception and execution, fully researched, and superbly analytical, surpassing even some of the work of is illustrious patrons. No one should look at corruption and the links of the politicians to the state in quite the same way again...Nothing is perfect, of course, but this book comes very close."
-Bohdan Harasymiw, University of Calgary, Canadian Slavonic Papers

Why do some governing parties limit their opportunistic behaviour and constrain the extraction of private gains from the state? This analysis of post-communist state reconstruction provides surprising answers to this fundamental question of party politics. Across the post-communist democracies, governing parties have opportunistically reconstructed the state - simultaneously exploiting it by extracting state resources and building new institutions that further such extraction. They enfeebled or delayed formal state institutions of monitoring and oversight, established new discretionary structures of state administration, and extracted enormous informal profits from the privatization of the communist economy. By examining how post-communist political parties rebuilt the state in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, Grzymala-Busse explains how even opportunistic political parties will limit their corrupt behaviour and abuse of state resources when faced with strong political competition.

1. Introduction
2. Competing for the state
3. Developing the formal institutions of the state
4. The expansion of state administration: exploitation or patronage?
5. Privatizing the state: party financing strategies.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Political corruption [JPZ], Public administration [JPP], Political structure & processes [JPH], Comparative politics [JPB], European history [HBJD]