Transacting in the absence of trust : Uncertainty and network patterns in post-communism

The paper critically discusses the widespread literature focusing on informal post-communist “clans,” “networks,” or “fiefdoms.” Often self-described as determinedly empirical, the “clan” paradigm is crucially shaped by its origins in the analysis of East Asia, as well as by its use as an ideal-typical opposite of Western-style hands-off market contracting in the “markets and hierarchies” literature. To counter such deficiencies, the paper proposes an alternative argument. Although interactions are indeed personalized, interpersonal trust in many post-communist countries has failed to compensate for missing institutional safeguards. Rather, confronted with an environment of low trust and high uncertainty, actors have developed two main coping strategies: on the one hand vertical integration, on the other hand a hedging strategy of purposeful network redundancy. Even though trust and enforcement remain low, actors can minimize the consequences of default by maintaining multiple ties. The consequences of such organizational strategies are ambiguous. By compensating for defaults, network redundancy has cushioned the impact of economic crisis. At the same time, network redundancy has considerably raised overall transaction costs and may also play a role in impeding democratic consolidation

It takes two to quango: post-Soviet fiscal relations, political entrepreneurship and agencification from below

The paper analyses the mushrooming growth of quasi-independent public agencies in the public sector of post-communist states. What at first glance seems to be a faithful transfer of institutions from the arsenal of New Public Management upon closer analysis turns into a very distinct phenomenon of post-communist transition. In the course of the 1990s, the amorphous public-private mix that was the Soviet political economy became increasingly differentiated as ex-apparatchiki turned political entrepreneurs branched out to create new commercial, collective, and even quasi-state regulatory bodies. The dividing lines between these new forms of organization, however, often remained quite blurry. This problem was further exacerbated by the severe underfunding of executive agencies that had become a notorious problem in post-Soviet countries. As a result, many agencies were forced to resort to private and semi-private sources of funding, and to commercialize their activities in order to support their official operations. In the second decade of transition, post-Soviet governments have increasingly been trying to control the worst such excesses through various forms of public management reform, such as the introduction of Single Treasury Accounts or various forms of revenue and expenditure audits. However, such efforts have met many setbacks and reversals; in some cases – such as for instance in post-Rose Revolution Georgia – the very new managerialist arsenal designed to enhance cost efficiency and separation between policy, regulatory and services tasks have instead with the government’s tacit approval been used to camouflage continuing hybridization and ballooning public sector employment. In other cases, such as Russia’s, growing restrictions on one form of organization have simply stimulated a shift to different legal forms, in this case state unitary enterprises

Die etatistische Governance der Forstwirtschaft und ihre Krise: Deutschland und Russland im Vergleich

In wichtigen europäischen Ländern hat bei der wirtschaftlichen Nutzung der Wälder über zwei Jahrhunderte das Korps der staatlichen Forstleute mit seinem Diskurs der "geregelten" und "nachhaltigen" Forstwirtschaft eine unbestrittene Hegemonie ausgeübt. Sein Vorrang ist inzwischen durch die Internationalisierung der Waldpolitik, den konkurrierenden Nachhaltigkeitsdiskurs des Naturschutzes und den innenpolitischen Gewichtsverlust der Forstwirtschaft bei zunehmenden fiskalischen Restriktionen ernsthaft in Frage gestellt. Der Aufsatz vergleicht vor diesem Hintergrund zwei markante Fälle der "Forstreform" und die Überlebensstrategien der Forstverwaltungen.Over the past two hundred years, professional state forest services have dominated the forest sectors of important European countries, not least through a hegemonic discourse focusing on "regulated" and "sustainable" silviculture. In recent decades this discourse has been increasingly challenged by the internationalization of forest policy, competing environmentalist discourses and the political weakness of the forest sector faced with growing fiscal constraints. In this context this article compares two significant cases of changing forest governance, examining both top-down reform and the survival strategies used by forest services

Initial analyses of the insti­tutional framework of the Russian forest sector

Godkänd; 1998; 20080305 (ysko)</p

Stratégies de la comparaison internationale

Lorsque, à la fin du xixe siècle, la sociologie est portée sur les fonts baptismaux, la comparaison internationale est présentée par des auteurs comme E. Durkheim ou M. Weber comme l’un des détours méthodologiques les plus fructueux pour l’analyse des institutions et des pratiques sociales. Qu’en est-il aujourd’hui ? Comment, à l’heure d’une globalisation multiforme, les différentes sciences de la société - l’économie, l’histoire, les sciences de l’éducation, les sciences politiques, la sociologie… - s’emparent-elles de cette stratégie de recherche ? Produit de la collaboration étroite de plus d’une vingtaine de chercheurs de spécialités et de nationalités différentes, cet ouvrage répond à deux questions majeures. Quelles sont les principales avancées conceptuelles et empiriques de ces dernières décennies dans le champ des comparaisons internationales ? Comment, dans le quotidien de leurs activités, les chercheurs fabriquent-ils des comparaisons ? En mêlant en permanence réflexions épistémologiques, considérations méthodologiques concrètes et présentations de travaux empiriques (sur l’école, le temps, le travail…), cet ouvrage offre un panorama aussi original qu’inédit sur l’une des stratégies de recherche les plus fécondes des sciences sociales contemporaines