Comrades No More: The Seeds of Change in Eastern Europe.

By Renée de Nevers. Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press, 2003. 320p. $50.00 cloth, $25.00 paper.

This volume investigates the dynamics of the transition from communism in six Central European states: Poland, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania. The stated aim of the study is to explain variations in the timing of transition and the direction taken by different states. The text is situated within a growing subdiscipline that straddles the division between comparative politics and international relations. Some of the most exciting work on democratic transitions is currently being done in this field, and an analysis of the postcommunist transitions from this perspective is to be welcomed. At the same time, the existing literature purporting to explain the rapid collapse of state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe is very large. To be of use to scholars, any new work in this field must demonstrate that it has something genuinely new or different to add.

Renée De Nevers recognizes this, but she claims that there have not heretofore been any truly satisfactory accounts of why the events in question took place when and how they did. Her study deploys three main explanatory variables: the relations between the ruling elites in each state and their respective societies, external influences (including both the impact of events in the USSR and the role of events in other Central European states), and the perceptions of the ruling elites in each of the states under analysis. After a short introduction, the book starts with a general theoretical chapter, followed by a chapter detailing the key features of the collapse of the USSR and their implications for events in Central Europe. The next five chapters, which form the meat of the analysis, assess the role of the three main explanatory variables in accounting for change in each of the six states, relying largely on a detailed reading of secondary and some primary source material integrated into a “thick description” of events. Poland and Hungary are viewed as states in which reform was initiated from above; the German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia (which are considered together in one chapter) are given as examples of reform from below; Bulgaria and Romania figure as late-reforming states. The volume closes with a conclusion that sums up the analyses undertaken in the preceding five chapters and reiterates the overall argument.

The attempt to explain state-level processes through the lens of an IR approach is intriguing; nevertheless, comparativists are likely to be somewhat disappointed with Comrades No More, due to the size of the explanatory black box that lies at its center. The three main factors held to account for differences in the course of transition in the countries under investigation ultimately reduce to one: the perceptions of national elites as to the necessity of reform. The other two variables—elite-society relations and cross-national demonstration effects—are seen in terms of reactions by national elites to the internal and external contexts in which they operate. That the analysis turns largely on a single explanatory factor is not necessarily problematic in and of itself. Yet the way in which elite perceptions are described leaves the reader feeling that something is missing. We are told, for example, that “cognitive blinders prevented some leaders from grasping the full extent of the changes going on around them” (p. 5) and that some were more adept than others in perceiving the “urgency of reform” (p. 22 et passim). Elites are thus viewed as either prescient or myopic. There are two main problems with this approach: Firstly, it is based on a highly teleological assumption, and secondly, it is doubtful how much it really explains.

With hindsight, of course, the chain of events that unfolded in the Central European states in 1989 and 1990 appear to have been heading in a common direction from the outset, yet it is unclear why we should expect elites to have seen it that way at the time, or why we should take for granted the inevitability of communist collapse and the eventual initiation of a certain type of reform program. Furthermore, many comparativists will undoubtedly wish that the author had worked harder to come to grips with the strategies of the actors involved. The cognitive processes described in this volume seem somewhat shallow. Actors either comprehend “the need for substantial changes in governance” (p. 21) or they fail to comprehend this need. They either understand the extent of their true legitimacy and accurately estimate their ability to compete in a more open political environment, or they fail to appreciate this. Understanding yields appropriate reform action, whereas failure to understand leads to ultimately self-defeating responses. It would have been useful to have had a fuller account of what drives cognitive processes themselves. We are told that people reason by analogy with previous experience (pp. 38–43), yet it is not entirely evident from this account why the cognitive processes of elites in some countries differed systematically from those in others. Was it socialization, political culture, ideology, too-bounded rationality, or some other factor? The size of this black box will inevitably be somewhat unsettling to many readers.

It is also somewhat unclear that this study does really represent a novel assessment of the communist collapse. Individual country studies on many of these states have yielded more insightful appreciation of the factors—cognitive and otherwise—that drove chains of events in each case. Moreover, demonstration effects and state–society relations are standard features in most accounts of these developments. All in all, one is left with the impression that much of this material is the result of recycling and repackaging, rather than offering a genuinely novel theoretical perspective. The text might serve as a useful accompaniment to courses in comparative politics and international relations, but I am unconvinced of its value as a scholarly monograph.