Volume 34, Number 4, July 2002

By the late 1990s the Chinese economy faced a series of financial problems, often attributed to the persistence of socialist institutions of economic control. However, China’s contemporary political economy is no longer best understood by the distinction between plan and market. Even in its financial sector China has to a large extent transcended this distinction. Rather than reflect the absence of liberalization, its current problems stem from the process of liberalization, the same process that occurred previously in virtually all market systems.

Variations in local state structure and practice have been neglected by political scientists, but they can cause uneven implementation of central policy and variation in state-society relations that can affect the power and sometimes even survival of the central state. Regardless of regime type, local state variation is shaped by superordinate levels of the state, local social contexts, and local officials’ preferences and ideologies. Two regions in Republican and post-Mao China illustrate the causes of local state variation and demonstrate how the differences in local state structure and practice affected state-society relations, policy implementation, and state capacity in public finance and taxation.

How has the double member district electoral system imposed by Pinochet’s regime affected parliamentary candidate selection in Chile? A complex constellation of variables influences candidate selection and placement on coalition lists. Parties and coalitions do not simply choose candidates to maximize district vote. They attempt to realize discrete objectives related to subpact alliances, national coalitions, and presidential candidacies which may not maximize the total individual or list vote. Generally applicable rules govern coalition selection of candidates. The effect of electoral systems and particularly of strategically complex systems on candidate selection processes across Latin America is an important subject for analysis.

The increasing interest of big business in democracy in Turkey is explained by a mix of domestic and global influences. Democracy is highly valued by big business because its absence effectively isolates Turkey from global norms and from benefits of full membership in the European Union. Domestically, democracy is conceived instrumentally as a necessary mechanism to limit arbitrary state intervention and contain redistributive pressures from below and threats from other segments of the business community. Though an improvement over current arrangements, this understanding of democracy does not extend social rights or challenge existing power relations. It seeks instead to create a more stable and predictable environment in which an externally competitive market economy can flourish.

Urban bias is commonly thought to be more intense in nondemocratic nations, in particular in one party systems. As societies democratize and introduce political competition, policy shifts in favor of rural interests. However, during Russian democratization urban bias has intensified through a widening price scissors, an open trade policy, and low domestic purchase prices. This intensification is explained by four factors previously not considered by urban bias theory: ideological differences between the state and rural interests; the ideological compatibility of rural interests; the internal coherence of rural interests; and the nature of political alliances entered into by rural groups.

As the third wave of democratization recedes, many authoritarian regimes persist. The stability of many authoritarian states raises important questions. The four books under review use different approaches to analyze the basic political struggles that occur within authoritarian states. The studies edited by Chehabi and Linz examine fallen patrimonial states and the difficulty of building democracy in their wake. Vandewalle, Herb, and Wedeen analyze the less attended topic of authoritarian continuity and stability through the resilience of dictatorships in the Middle East. Together, these four books offer an encouraging turning point in theorizing about contemporary authoritarianism, independent of democratic transition.