Institutions and the Fate of Democracy

Germany and Poland in the Twentieth Century

Bibliographic Data

ID6323869
AuthorsKarol Edward Soltan (University of Maryland, College Park, corresponding author), Karol Soltan
Year2006
Volume4
Issue3
Pages608-610
Publication date2006-09-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePerspectives on Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1537-5927 • E-ISSN: 1541-0986
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1537592706550364
OpenAlexW2031212056
LanguageEN
Citations received2

Institutions and the Fate of Democracy: Germany and Poland in the Twentieth Century. By Michael Bernhard. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. 310p. $29.95. In this book Michael Bernhard asks two questions: Why do new democracies pick the institutions that they do? How do certain patterns of institutions affect the chances of democratic survival? And his theoretical framework, in its initial formulation, makes two claims. First, institutional choices are a product of powerful agents pursuing their narrow interest. If you know who is powerful and what they want, you will be able to predict the institutional outcomes. Second, the key to democratic survival, at least in the initial posttransition phase, is the breadth and strength of the original institution-forming coalition. A key conclusion of the study is that democracies are in trouble when the coalitions that brought about their institutional arrangements lose power too soon, as happened in prewar Poland and in Weimar Germany. And this can occur for a variety of reasons: New actors may be brought in, for example, or the salient issues may change

Democracy · Institution · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Product (mathematics · Salient · Sociology · Variety (cybernetics · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · European history and politics · Law · Soviet and Russian History

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