In Pursuit of Liberalism

Contents

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List of Tables

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pp. ix-x

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

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pp. xi-xii

Acknowledgments

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pp. xiii-xiv

The topics in this book have commanded my interest for a very long time. And, as every author knows, turning interests into coherent arguments requires the help of many people and institutions along the way. I would first like to thank the members of my committee at Cornell University, whose counsel, they may be surprised to learn, I still think of and use every day—in the classroom, advising students, and ...

Introduction

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pp. 1-6

Why do states adopt liberalizing reforms when doing so contradicts their domestic preferences and threatens to undermine their policy autonomy and national tradition? Even with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism, the appeal of political pluralism and free market enterprise was far from universal. For although countries in central and eastern Europe (CEE) converged on liberal ...

1. Cultivating Consensus: International Institutions and a Liberal Worldview

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pp. 7-29

I present here a theory of institutional influence that locates the impetus for state-level compliance in social mechanisms, specifically in the cultivation of a common worldview. This common—liberal—worldview is anchored by a shared perception of where authority lies. For much of central and eastern Europe (CEE), the postcommunist transition has been marked by a shift from domestic ...

2. Institutionalizing Central Bank Independence

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pp. 30-68

Converting socialist-era monobanks from quasi-fiscal instruments of the state into politically independent central banks is among the most important measures of how far postcommunist states have traveled on the road to Western-style market economies. By the late 1990s, many central and eastern European (CEE) central banks had already outdone even the German Bundesbank on measures of ...

3. Internationalizing Bank Ownership

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pp. 69-106

The willingness of central and eastern European (CEE) states to allow significant levels of foreign investment in strategic sectors during the postcommunist transition is historically unprecedented. Nowhere is this more striking than in banking, where close to 70 percent of assets in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic were foreign owned by the beginning of the twenty-first century. As in ...

4. Democratizing Civil-Military Relations

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pp. 107-148

The accession of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999 and of Romania in 2004 ought not to have been a vigorous test of NATO’s power to win compliance from candidate states. The proven vulnerability of all four states made membership in the world’s most successful military alliance a patently logical goal. The rise of democratic opposition ...

5. Denationalizing Defense Planning and Foreign Policy

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pp. 149-191

In 2003, Poland was the fourth largest provider of military forces to the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, contributing approximately 2,500 soldiers and special forces. Over the following two years, as Poland was administering one of only three ‘‘stabilization’’ zones in Iraq, with 9,500 troops under its command, Romania, Ukraine, and Hungary also sent forces. All four countries had also

Conclusion

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pp. 192-214

Liberalism, in both its economic and political forms, was on the rise in the decades following the end of the Cold War. International capital mobility, trade, and investment reached new highs almost yearly (Simmons, Dobbin, and Garrett 2006). The privatization of formerly state-owned assets and the widespread acceptance of politically independent monetary and regulatory institutions were two ...

Appendix: Interviews

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pp. 215-218

Notes

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pp. 219-240

References

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pp. 241-257

Index

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pp. 257-267