№ 6 - 2002
Yeliseyev S.M.
To Break out of the “Bermudas Triangle”: On Methodology of the Research of Post-Communist Transformations

Pointing out a methodological crisis in the studies of post-communism, the author attempts to trace a way out of this “Bermudas triangle”, i.e. of this “sense vacuum”. One of promising strategies he perceives in cross-regional comparisons of the processes of post-communist transformations. Neoinstitutionalism appears to him the interdisciplinary paradigm of comparative studies of these transformations. Problems of institutional efficiency and legitimacy of electoral and party systems, as well as stages of their legitimation are discussed; contradictions are analyzed between the technology of establishing political organizations and their purposes; and, finally, the role is discussed of parties of different types, as well as of a whole party system’s institutionalization, in the consolidation of democracy.