The Politics of Pact-Making

Reviews / Votes

"The collapse of the Communist regimes after 1989, the closing of a long historical parenthesis, was a momentous event. In this study of the Hungarian transition John Schiemann offers the first analytical account of one of these processes, with wide implications for transitions more generally. In a compelling picture of bargaining under uncertainty, he shows how differing attitudes to risk rather than conflicting political demands generated the dynamics of the transition. It is a book that should be obligatory reading for students of regime change, who too easily come to see as inevitable what for the actors themselves was a highly contingent set of events. The Hungarian communists may have been moribund, but the world did not know it until they were dead." - Jon Elster, Robert K. Merton Professor of Social Science, Columbia University

'This highly original study adds greatly to our knowledge of pact-making and political bargaining by forcing us to think beyond the categoriess of 'regime' and 'opposition' and recognize that the role of risk-takers and risk-avoiders within each category is pivotal to any outcome. Beginning with meticulous research on the Hungarian case and then expanding to three other cases for a rigorous test of the author's argument, this book solves a key puzzle about who wins and who loses in the bargains that lie at the foundation of failed and successful regime change. This is an enlightening study that truly deserves a wide audience.'

- Nancy Bermeo, Professor of Politics, Princeton University