Csanadi, Maria. Self-Consuming Evolutions: A Model on the Structure, Self-reproduction, Self-destruction and Transformation of Party-state Systems Tested in Romania, Hungary and China.

• Author: Wang, Linda Q.
• Position: Book review

Csanadi, Maria. Self-Consuming Evolutions: A Model on the Structure, Self-reproduction, Self-destruction and Transformation of Party-state Systems Tested in Romania, Hungary and China. Budapest, Hungary: Akadamiai Kiado, 2006. xv + 341 pages. Cloth, $55.

Political and economic transformation of former socialist countries in Europe and Asia has been gaining momentum since the fall of the Berlin Wall. With similar party-state systems in operation until recently, these countries are experiencing changes that vary significantly from one another. As a relatively new phenomenon, scholarly research about the processes, characteristics, and consequences of these variations is still in its infancy. Self-Consuming Evolutions is a timely and valuable addition to our limited knowledge about these phenomena and sheds a little more light on our continued query as these processes unravel.

Self-Consuming Evolutions is a rare and daring endeavor in theorizing the paths, processes, and consequences of changes in the former party-state systems in Europe and Asia. It is the crystallization of Csanfidi's nearly three decades of empirical research about party-states. Organized in two sections, Csanadi's book constructs an interactive party-state model (IPS) in the first section and demonstrates how that model works in the second section in three empirical cases of former party-state systems: Romania, Hungary, and the People's Republic of China.

Csanfidi uses an inductive approach and constructs the IPS model from a comprehensive perspective based on studies of the intricacies and the complexities empirically researched in the networks of interactions between individual party-states and economic decision-makers. Challenging existing comparative-reform literature that compares reforms in their dynamics and outcomes, Csanadi proposes a structural and institutional approach which compares reforms in the context of system dynamics and outcomes. Consisting of two key parts--the structure of party-states and the patterns of the reproduction of party-states--the IPS model facilitates comparison and analyses of the different patterns of reproduction resulting from different system dynamics.

Csanadi theorizes the role of five critical factors that determine the party-state system structures: (1) the party hierarchy, (2) the state hierarchy, (3) the state-owned economy and the resources controlled, (4) the interactions of the previous three factors, and (5) the structural...