Ellen Comisso
Biographic Data
| ID | 364676 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ellen Comisso |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ellen |
| FAMILY NAME | Comisso |
| SIGNATURE | COMISSO E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California San Diego |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 46 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Adventures in Socialism
Fieldwork studies in Yugoslavia and Hungary revealed different forms and limitations of "market socialism" in the 1980s
Legislative Politics in Latin America
This study, first published in 2002, explores legislative politics in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Instead of beginning with an assumption that these legislatures are either rubber-stamps or obstructionist bodies, the chapters provide interesting data and a fresh analytical approach to describe and explain the role of these representative bodies in these consolidating democracies. For each country the book provides three chapters dedicat…
Stuffing the Ballot Box
Stuffing the Ballot Box is a pioneering study of electoral fraud and reform. It focuses on Costa Rica, a country where parties gradually transformed a fraud-ridden political system into one renowned for its stability and fair elections by the mid-twentieth century. Lehoucq and Molina draw upon a unique database of more than 1,300 accusations of ballot-rigging to show that parties denounced fraud where electoral laws made the struggle for power mo…
Stuffing the Ballot Box
Contemporary Capitalism
This book argues that there is no single best institutional arrangement for organizing modern societies. Therefore, the market should not be considered the ideal and universal arrangement for coordinating economic activity. Instead, the editors argue, the economic institutions of capitalism exhibit a large variety of objectives and tools that complement each other and cannot work in isolation. The various chapters of the book explore challenging …
Social Theory and the Crisis of Socialism
Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty
This article explores the causes for the pervasive sentiment in contemporary Eastern Europe to the effect that “it is democratic but it isn't”. It begins with a discussion of the differences between “procedural” and “substantive” democracy, and finds that the institutions of procedural democracy have proven surprisingly robust in the post-communist period. It then examines three variants of substantive democracy: liberal, national, and egalitaria…
Challenging the State
The 1980s and 1990s posed great challenges to governments in Latin America and Africa. Deep economic crises and significantly heightened pressure for political reform severely taxed their capacity to manage economic and political tasks. These crises pointed to an intense need to reform the state and redefine its relationship to the market and civic society. This book examines the paradox of states that have been weakened by crisis just as their c…
Legacies of the Past or New Institutions
In a case study of how claims of former owners for the return of nationalized assets were dealt with in Hungary, the explanatory power of theories emphasizing the importance of cultural “legacies” is tested against that of theories stressing the impact of institutional incentives in accounting for political outcomes. In Hungary, the structure of post-1989 institutions provides a persuasive explanation of the Compensation Law; legacies had a large…
Structuring Politics
This volume brings together original essays by scholars working on a diverse range of empirical issues, but whose work is in each case informed by a 'historical institutional' approach to the study of politics. By bringing these pieces together, the volume highlights the methodological and theoretical foundations of this approach and illustrates the general contributions it has made to comparative politics. The essays demonstrate the potential of…
The Costs of Democracy
Property Rights, Liberalism, and the Transition from “Actually Existing” Socialism
Crisis in Socialism or Crisis of Socialism
The immediate causes of the current crisis in socialism are the highly authoritarian and extremely hierarchical political and economic structures created by Leninism. Yet the collapse of state socialism also appears to be part of a more general crisis of socialism, a crisis that includes even its potentially more democratic variants. At the core of this broader crisis lies the diminishing appeal of the publicly owned enterprise, an institution th…
Fair Shares
Market Failures and Market Socialism
Power, Purpose, and Collective Choice
In this pathbreaking volume, thirteen noted political scientists and economists examine the various foreign economic strategies adopted by East European nations to combat the international economic disturbances of the 1970s and 1980s
State structures and political processes outside the CMEA
Although state structures among non-CMEA NICs varied widely, all were fundamentally different from state structures within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. Moreover, because those differences were as much in kind as in degree, even nominally similar strategy choices and political processes were actually the product of different causes, shaped by different objectives and political actors, accomplished with different instruments, and fol…
Introduction
The similarity of state structures throughout Eastern Europe helps to explain why the reactions of states in that area to the international economic disturbances of the past decade resemble each other and why they differ from those of states outside the socialist bloc. Similar state structures, however, do not explain why the economic strategies of the East European states themselves in response to international economic shocks in the 1970s and 1…
The economics and politics of reform in Hungary
Reform of the domestic economic system is the distinctive element of Hungary's foreign economic strategy in the 1980s. The need for systemic economic reform stems from Hungary's status as a small country, heavily dependent on foreign trade, many of whose imports can no longer be met within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance alone. The many obstacles to economic reform lie in a heritage of policy choices that responded to domestic and CMEA…
A Worker in a Workers' State
As a young Hungarian economist noted, “Were you to compare the samizdat work with what appears in the regular journals, often you would have trouble noticing a difference.” And certainly in Hungary today, the line between criticism and dissent is a thin one — so thin, in fact, that an author can frequently write more piercing social commentary remaining within “permissible” bounds than going beyond them. The works of Miklós Haraszti and Gyorgy Mo…
Workers' Control in America
Workers' Councils and Labor Unions
The Yugoslav Economy under Self-Management
The economics and politics of reform in Hungary
Reform of the domestic economic system is the distinctive element of Hungary's foreign economic strategy in the 1980s. The need for systemic economic reform stems from Hungary's status as a small country, heavily dependent on foreign trade, many of whose imports can no longer be met within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance alone. The many obstacles to economic reform lie in a heritage of policy choices that responded to domestic and CMEA…
Introduction
The similarity of state structures throughout Eastern Europe helps to explain why the reactions of states in that area to the international economic disturbances of the past decade resemble each other and why they differ from those of states outside the socialist bloc. Similar state structures, however, do not explain why the economic strategies of the East European states themselves in response to international economic shocks in the 1970s and 1…
Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty
This article explores the causes for the pervasive sentiment in contemporary Eastern Europe to the effect that “it is democratic but it isn't”. It begins with a discussion of the differences between “procedural” and “substantive” democracy, and finds that the institutions of procedural democracy have proven surprisingly robust in the post-communist period. It then examines three variants of substantive democracy: liberal, national, and egalitaria…
Property Rights, Liberalism, and the Transition from “Actually Existing” Socialism
Legacies of the Past or New Institutions
In a case study of how claims of former owners for the return of nationalized assets were dealt with in Hungary, the explanatory power of theories emphasizing the importance of cultural “legacies” is tested against that of theories stressing the impact of institutional incentives in accounting for political outcomes. In Hungary, the structure of post-1989 institutions provides a persuasive explanation of the Compensation Law; legacies had a large…
Market Failures and Market Socialism
Crisis in Socialism or Crisis of Socialism
The immediate causes of the current crisis in socialism are the highly authoritarian and extremely hierarchical political and economic structures created by Leninism. Yet the collapse of state socialism also appears to be part of a more general crisis of socialism, a crisis that includes even its potentially more democratic variants. At the core of this broader crisis lies the diminishing appeal of the publicly owned enterprise, an institution th…
The Yugoslav Economy under Self-Management
State structures and political processes outside the CMEA
Although state structures among non-CMEA NICs varied widely, all were fundamentally different from state structures within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. Moreover, because those differences were as much in kind as in degree, even nominally similar strategy choices and political processes were actually the product of different causes, shaped by different objectives and political actors, accomplished with different instruments, and fol…
The Yugoslav Economy under Self-Management
Workers' Control in America
Workers' Councils and Labor Unions
A Worker in a Workers' State
As a young Hungarian economist noted, “Were you to compare the samizdat work with what appears in the regular journals, often you would have trouble noticing a difference.” And certainly in Hungary today, the line between criticism and dissent is a thin one — so thin, in fact, that an author can frequently write more piercing social commentary remaining within “permissible” bounds than going beyond them. The works of Miklós Haraszti and Gyorgy Mo…
Power, Purpose, and Collective Choice
In this pathbreaking volume, thirteen noted political scientists and economists examine the various foreign economic strategies adopted by East European nations to combat the international economic disturbances of the 1970s and 1980s
State structures and political processes outside the CMEA
Although state structures among non-CMEA NICs varied widely, all were fundamentally different from state structures within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. Moreover, because those differences were as much in kind as in degree, even nominally similar strategy choices and political processes were actually the product of different causes, shaped by different objectives and political actors, accomplished with different instruments, and fol…
Introduction
The similarity of state structures throughout Eastern Europe helps to explain why the reactions of states in that area to the international economic disturbances of the past decade resemble each other and why they differ from those of states outside the socialist bloc. Similar state structures, however, do not explain why the economic strategies of the East European states themselves in response to international economic shocks in the 1970s and 1…
The economics and politics of reform in Hungary
Reform of the domestic economic system is the distinctive element of Hungary's foreign economic strategy in the 1980s. The need for systemic economic reform stems from Hungary's status as a small country, heavily dependent on foreign trade, many of whose imports can no longer be met within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance alone. The many obstacles to economic reform lie in a heritage of policy choices that responded to domestic and CMEA…
Market Failures and Market Socialism
Property Rights, Liberalism, and the Transition from “Actually Existing” Socialism
Crisis in Socialism or Crisis of Socialism
The immediate causes of the current crisis in socialism are the highly authoritarian and extremely hierarchical political and economic structures created by Leninism. Yet the collapse of state socialism also appears to be part of a more general crisis of socialism, a crisis that includes even its potentially more democratic variants. At the core of this broader crisis lies the diminishing appeal of the publicly owned enterprise, an institution th…
Fair Shares
Structuring Politics
This volume brings together original essays by scholars working on a diverse range of empirical issues, but whose work is in each case informed by a 'historical institutional' approach to the study of politics. By bringing these pieces together, the volume highlights the methodological and theoretical foundations of this approach and illustrates the general contributions it has made to comparative politics. The essays demonstrate the potential of…
The Costs of Democracy
Legacies of the Past or New Institutions
In a case study of how claims of former owners for the return of nationalized assets were dealt with in Hungary, the explanatory power of theories emphasizing the importance of cultural “legacies” is tested against that of theories stressing the impact of institutional incentives in accounting for political outcomes. In Hungary, the structure of post-1989 institutions provides a persuasive explanation of the Compensation Law; legacies had a large…
Challenging the State
The 1980s and 1990s posed great challenges to governments in Latin America and Africa. Deep economic crises and significantly heightened pressure for political reform severely taxed their capacity to manage economic and political tasks. These crises pointed to an intense need to reform the state and redefine its relationship to the market and civic society. This book examines the paradox of states that have been weakened by crisis just as their c…
Contemporary Capitalism
This book argues that there is no single best institutional arrangement for organizing modern societies. Therefore, the market should not be considered the ideal and universal arrangement for coordinating economic activity. Instead, the editors argue, the economic institutions of capitalism exhibit a large variety of objectives and tools that complement each other and cannot work in isolation. The various chapters of the book explore challenging …
Social Theory and the Crisis of Socialism
Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty
This article explores the causes for the pervasive sentiment in contemporary Eastern Europe to the effect that “it is democratic but it isn't”. It begins with a discussion of the differences between “procedural” and “substantive” democracy, and finds that the institutions of procedural democracy have proven surprisingly robust in the post-communist period. It then examines three variants of substantive democracy: liberal, national, and egalitaria…
Legislative Politics in Latin America
This study, first published in 2002, explores legislative politics in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Instead of beginning with an assumption that these legislatures are either rubber-stamps or obstructionist bodies, the chapters provide interesting data and a fresh analytical approach to describe and explain the role of these representative bodies in these consolidating democracies. For each country the book provides three chapters dedicat…
Stuffing the Ballot Box
Stuffing the Ballot Box is a pioneering study of electoral fraud and reform. It focuses on Costa Rica, a country where parties gradually transformed a fraud-ridden political system into one renowned for its stability and fair elections by the mid-twentieth century. Lehoucq and Molina draw upon a unique database of more than 1,300 accusations of ballot-rigging to show that parties denounced fraud where electoral laws made the struggle for power mo…
Stuffing the Ballot Box
Adventures in Socialism
Fieldwork studies in Yugoslavia and Hungary revealed different forms and limitations of "market socialism" in the 1980s
Political science (21 works) · Politics (18 works) · Economics (17 works) · Law (17 works) · Political economy (13 works) · Economic system (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Communism (5 works)