In some ways, this volume seems to be well positioned to provide such a map. The roster of editors is quite promising. Janos Kornai, Robert Kaufman, and Stephan Haggard are well-known and experienced scholars. They represent the best of the Eastern and Western social science traditions. Too often studies of the transitional societies of the former East bloc have been written from a one-sided perspective. Western authors may be well versed in theory, yet they often lack a truly detailed understanding of the nature of the region. This can lead to seriously flawed analyses—à la Jeffrey Sachs. Conversely, Eastern authors may stress the “unique” problems of their societies, without adequate understanding of broader theoretical and comparative perspectives. This study seemed to have the potential of blending the local expertise of Kornai and his colleagues with the insights of an author such as Haggard, whose works (such as Pathways from the Periphery 1990) suggest a broader context.

Indeed, a number of the book's case study chapters are quite interesting and valuable. Vladimir Gimpelson, for example, provides a detailed study of the politics of labor market adjustment in Russia. His explanation for the phenomenon of wage arrears as a form of hidden unemployment is fascinating. Vito Tanzi compares the efforts of Russia and Georgia to reform their tax systems, concluding that Georgia has been more successful. The Georgian case is an interesting one, and one that has not been well studied in the literature. In his chapter, Kornai presents an innovative model for reforming the Hungarian health-care system. And finally, Assar Lindbeck's chapter, which seeks to draw lessons for the “post-socialist” countries from the experiences of Sweden, is also a refreshing change of pace. Given frequent calls for a Swedish-style “third way” in the region, it is striking how rarely the perspective of Swedish authors has been seen in previous studies of the reform process.

However, this volume falls short in several ways, and thus, while providing many useful insights, it is not the definitive “road map” to state reform that analysts and policymakers have sought.

The first problem is with geographical coverage. The book contains eight case studies of reform. Half are focused on Hungary. Two touch on Russia, two on Poland, and one on Georgia. This is hardly a comprehensive survey of the postcommunist area, which contains some 25 states. Whole regions are missing— the Balkans, the Baltic states, Central Asia, the Ukraine, and Belarus—as well as the Czech Republic and Slovakia, important comparative cases to Hungary and Poland. The political and economic context of reform differs greatly across these states. It would certainly be difficult to cover all 25 countries in one volume, but it should have been possible to pick some that would better represent each important subgrouping of states. The strong focus on Hungary and a few other states limits the volume's applicability to other cases.

Additionally, the topical coverage is also too limited. For example, given the limited number of chapters, it would have been preferable not to have any overlap among the topics. Yet the work has two partially overlapping chapters on pension reform in Poland and Hungary (by Joan Nelson and Jerzy Hausner) and two focusing largely on Hungarian fiscal policy (by Bela Griskovits and Haggard et al.). While these chapters are well written and interesting, and each does have something new to contribute, it might have been better to focus on more diverse topics.

Finally, the volume suffers from the lack of an overall theoretical perspective. This is a problem seen in many edited volumes. To cope with the natural centrifugal tendencies of a book with so many contributors, it is helpful to impose a set of common methods—or at least a set of common questions. This volume has been less ambitious; as Kornai puts it in his introduction (p. xiii): “[T]he group's work has not produced a set of strictly argued theoretical propositions. It would be more accurate to call the material before the reader a set of carefully expressed conjectures.”

With 10 years of postcommunist data and experience to draw on, it could be argued that it is time to move beyond conjecture, however interesting. While this volume does provide a more definitive social science perspective in some places—as, for example, in the Introduction by Haggard and Kaufman and at the end of their chapter with Matthew Shugart—more would have been helpful. An overall concluding chapter, for example, might have been useful in helping to integrate the case studies and strengthen the volume's theoretical content. Despite these shortcomings, however, the work is still quite valuable in many ways, especially for its detailed case studies.