The Novgorod region of Russia is a sparsely populated area about the size of Ireland better known for its medieval archaeology and folklore than for anything else. Although Novgorod began the post-Soviet period with no unusual endowment of natural or human resources, it has attracted a large amount of foreign investment. Its dramatic economic success and political innovation have impressed observers. Local governments deliver benefits and services reliably, and the regional government responds quickly to citizens' needs and demands. Something noteworthy is happening in Novgorod that does not square with familiar headlines about contemporary Russia: oligarchs and oil, ethnic tensions and corruption.Nicolai N. Petro attempts to explain the Novgorod phenomenon by seeking answers at the regional level. Novgorod is, he finds, a model of effective democratic consolidation. Petro suggests that the region owes its unexpected recent success to its political elites, who have identified key cultural symbols and used those symbols to promote democratic development. Drawing on comparisons with other regions and countries, Petro finds that these cultural tactics often yield better results than do Western-style institutions and educational training programs. "Current efforts to promote democracy focus too much on structural changes and not enough on the conditions needed to sustain them," Petro writes. "For the rule of law, free markets, and free and fair elections to gain broad public support, they must first make sense within the local cultural tradition." The unexpected success of regional democratic development in a country not known for its democratic traditions suggests that local governments can transform the burden of the past into an ally of change, a finding with implications for democratic development initiatives in other areas of the world.

Political wisdom holds that the political boundaries of a state necessarily coincide with a nation's perceived cultural boundaries. Today, the sociocultural diversity of many polities renders this understanding obsolete. This volume provides the framework for the state-nation, a new paradigm that addresses the need within democratic nations to accommodate distinct ethnic and cultural groups within a country while maintaining national political coherence. First introduced briefly in 1996 by Alfred Stepan and Juan J. Linz, the state-nation is a country with significant multicultural—even multinational—components that engenders strong identification and loyalty from its citizens. Here, Indian political scholar Yogendra Yadav joins Stepan and Linz to outline and develop the concept further. The core of the book documents how state-nation policies have helped craft multiple but complementary identities in India in contrast to nation-state policies in Sri Lanka, which contributed to polarized and warring identities. The authors support their argument with the results of some of the largest and most original surveys ever designed and employed for comparative political research. They include a chapter discussing why the U.S. constitutional model, often seen as the preferred template for all the world’s federations, would have been particularly inappropriate for crafting democracy in politically robust multinational countries such as India or Spain. To expand the repertoire of how even unitary states can respond to territorially concentrated minorities with some secessionist desires, the authors develop a revised theory of federacy and show how such a formula helped craft the recent peace agreement in Aceh, Indonesia. Empirically thorough and conceptually clear, Crafting State-Nations will have a substantial impact on the study of comparative political institutions and the conception and understanding of nationalism and democracy.

This catalogue explores the role of craft in voicing dissent in an era of political disruption.

"Giuseppe Di Palma's book could not be more timely, given the snowballing events that are gaining momentum in Eastern and Western Europe. . . . It represents a truly fresh look at the red-hot issue of transitions to democracy."—Joseph LaPalombara, Yale University

Shifting the focus -- Culture, myth, and symbols.

The importance of subnational regions to politics, governance, and economic development in Western Europe has long been recognized. However, far less is known about recent steps to introduce a regional level of politics in East Central Europe. Reforms there are part of the larger process of crafting democracy; that is, regional reforms are linked to the economic and political transition away from communism and toward “Europe,” specifically the European Union. Crafting Democracy offers an important comparative analysis of the process and outcomes of region-building in the four Visegrád countries. Jennifer A. Yoder investigates why some but not other post-communist countries chose to introduce a regional level of elected government. In the 1990s, for example, Poland boldly took the lead in regionalization, while the Czech Republic and Slovakia lagged behind. Hungary, meanwhile, declined to create regions. The author argues that these regional reform processes have potentially far-reaching implications for state-society relations, political participation, and policymaking at the domestic level. The emergence of new actors at the subnational level, moreover, creates opportunities for cross-border and European Union–level initiatives.

Unlike most other emerging South American democracies, Venezuela has not succumbed to a successful military coup d'etat during four decades of democratic rule. What drives armed forces to follow the orders of elected leaders? And how do emerging democracies gain that control over their military establishments? Harold Trinkunas answers these questions in an examination of Venezuela's transition to democracy following military rule and its attempts to institutionalize civilian control of the military over the past sixty years, a period that included three regime changes. Trinkunas first focuses on the strategic choices democratizers make about the military and how these affect the internal civil-military balance of power in a new regime. He then analyzes a regime's capacity to institutionalize civilian control, looking specifically at Venezuela's failures and successes in this arena during three periods of intense change: the October revolution (1945-48), the Pact of Punto Fijo period (1958-98), and the Fifth Republic under President Hugo Chavez (1998 to the present). Placing Venezuela in comparative perspective with Argentina, Chile, and Spain, Trinkunas identifies the bureaucratic mechanisms democracies need in order to sustain civilian authority over the armed forces.

By examining the institutions of government through the lens of constitution-making, Crafting Constitutional Democracies provides a broad and insightful introduction to comparative politics. Drawn from a series of lectures given in Jakarta, Indonesia, on the drafting of the U.S. constitution, the book illustrates the problems faced by generations of founders, through numerous historic and contemporary examples. Both Indonesia in 1999 and the United States in 1789 faced the same basic issue: how to construct a central government for a large and diverse nation that allowed the majority of the people to govern themselves without intruding on the rights of minorities. What kinds of institutions make for 'good government'? What factors need to be considered in designing a government? Author Edward Schneier explores these questions through a rich variety of examples from both recent and historic transitions to democracy. Drawing frequently upon the arguments of the American Federalist Papers and more contemporary theories of democratization, Crafting Constitutional Democracies lucidly explores the key questions of how and why democracies succeed and fail. A concluding chapter on constitutional change and decline raises provocative and important questions about the lessons that citizens of the world's older democracies might take from the struggles of the new.

Drawing on expert works, early political and government records, and personal correspondence, Fabio Leone examines the most commonly cited explanations of the unlikely and puzzling democratization of India. He concludes that the creation of Indian democracy is best understood when assessing the combination of capacities and behaviors of the Indian political leadership. Through a theoretical framework, he demonstrates that Indian democratization was the result of successful interplay between a limited number of key leaders, with the main player being Jawaharlal Nehru. Prophet and Statesmen in Crafting Democracy in India offers an explanation of the origins ofIndian democracy that will interest scholars and students of comparative politics, democratization, political leadership, and South Asian politics and history.