From Elections to Democracy: Building Accountable Government in Hungary and Poland bySusan Rose-AckermanReview by: Sarah BirchThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 84, No. 3 (Jul., 2006), pp. 576-578Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4214348 .

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Primakov's volume adds to our knowledge of high level politics in the late Soviet and early post-Soviet period. However, English language readers would welcome more detailed contributions from Evgenii Maksimovich on his personal life and the state(s) he represented and served.

School of Political and Social Inquigy P. LENTINI

Monash Universit

Rose-Ackerman, Susan. From Elections to Democracy: Building Accountable Govern- ment in Hungagy and Poland. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005.

Xii + 272 pp. Tables. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. Index. ?35.oo: $50.00.

FOLLOWING the heady days of the revolutions in Eastern Europe at the end of the I98os, academic and practitioner focus was on the institutionalization of democracy in the area through the introduction of competitive elections and multiparty politics. More recently, however, attention has turned to making democratically elected institutions accountable to the people. This volume by Susan Rose-Ackerman thus comes at an appropriate point in the evolution of Central European politics, when fifteen years' experience and several changes of government have allowed all the states in the region to evaluate the structural weakness in their democratic systems. It is a study of what the author terms 'policy-making accountability' (as opposed to implementation or 'performance' accountability) in Hungary and Poland. In viewing accountabil- ity from a variety of different conceptual and institutional perspectives, Rose- Ackerman provides a detailed and nuanced consideration of the issues she examines.

The book is divided into eleven chapters, organized according to five differ- ent possible routes to policy-making accountability: external or international accountability; accountability through oversight bodies inside central govern- ment; the exercise of accountability at and by lower-level government; neo- corporatism and other forms of public consultation, and participation by civil society. Following an introduction, chapters two and three establish the con- ceptual and empirical underpinnings of the volume. Chapter two introduces the different routes to accountability outlined above, while chapter three examines the legacy of the Communist past and its role in shaping the current Central European political context.

With chapter four, the book begins a series of detailed analyses of the differ- ent means of achieving accountability, starting in chapter four itself with a consideration of external accountability, with primary reference to the European Union. Chapter five considers oversight within the state apparatus, chapter six looks at decentralized political accountability, and chapter seven assesses corporatist structures together with other forms of public consultation.

The next three chapters focus on the final avenue to accountability participation by citizens and organized groups concentrating on environ- mental groups in Hungary and student/youth groups in Poland. Chapter

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REVIEWS 577

eight gives an overview of the range of civil society groups in these countries, their organization and resourcing, and their involvement in the policy process. Chapter nine examines the role of environmental groups in Hungary in greater detail, while chapter ten does the same for student/youth groups in Poland.

The final chapter, chapter eleven, sums up the findings of the volume, provides an extended account of the US example, and closes with a series of recommendations as to how Hungary and Poland could improve accountabil- ity. The chapter's general conclusion is that the Central European states ought to do more to involve civil society organizations in the policy process.

Rose-Ackerman is careful to highlight achievements as well as problems, and while the study does have a strong prescriptive element, the descriptions and analyses it contains are balanced and supported with substantial evidence. Though very detailed, it avoids falling into the trap of not seeing the forest for the trees; it is clearly structured with good analysis and summaries at the end of each substantive chapter.

Though some political scientists might be disappointed that the book is not more explanatory, its descriptive, analytical and prescriptive aims are skilfully achieved. It supplies a trove of detailed factual information and data on the wide range of institutions studied, which will be useful for those without the language skills to access the relevant documentation in the original. The analyses also refer frequently to forty valuable interviews with key actors (mostly conducted in 2002 and 2003).

A number of criticisms can invariably be made of any book, and this is no exception. More theoretical consideration might have been given to the meaning of accountability and its different treatments in the political-theory literature. The selection of cases could have been more explicitly defended, and the states chosen could have been better situated in the broader context of the region. There could also have been more justification for the selection of substantive areas of policy on which to focus (the environment in Hungary and student/youth groups in Poland). But the most significant problem with the study is that it pays scant attention to the role of political parties in the policy process. The Western European experience demonstrates that a very effective route to accountable policy-making is through a strong party system where parties are held to task by their voters, and scrutinize each other's activities though the parliamentary process. Rose-Ackerman glides over this model rather rapidly, proposing instead an American-inspired model based on participation in policy-making by civil society and interest groups. Many of the comparisons in the text are with the US, which may strike many readers as somewhat incongruous. More comparisons with structures of accountability in other European countries would have been more appropriate, and it would have given the author an opportunity to argue her case for the superiority of the American model more directly. Instead the party-based European model is virtually ignored.

Despite the overt American bias of the analysis, this study will be of interest to a range of readers. Though its audience will perforce be relatively special- ized, it will also be diverse. The volume provides useful case studies for gradu- ate-level students of public policy in Eastern Europe, and it is a valuable

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source book for Central European specialists. It also represents an important contribution for policy communities in Central Europe and in those states seeking to devise strategies to support political development in the region.

Department of Government SARAH BIRCH

University of Essex

Barjaba, Kosta (ed.). Albania's Democratic Elections, I99I-I997: Analyses, Documents and Data. Founding Elections in Eastern Europe. Sigma, Berlin, 2004. 28I pp. Maps. Tables. Notes. Appendices. E2I.90 (paperback).

Skaric, Svetomir. Democratic Elections in Macedonia, I990-2002: Analyses, Documents and Data. With a contribution by Hossein Shahla. Founding Elections in Eastern Europe. Sigma, Berlin, 2005. 326 pp. Notes. Tables. Appendices. ?22.90 (paperback).

THE Sigma series on Founding Elections in Eastern Europe, edited by Hans- Dieter Klingemann and Charles Lewis Taylor, was established in I995 and now includes over a dozen volumes on countries ranging from Russia to Slovenia. Written almost exclusively by prominent political scientists from the countries under consideration, this series provides an insider's view of electoral processes in the post-Communist area. Each book includes analyses of the historical context of the state in question, discussion of the electoral legislation governing the contests studied, an overview of the candidates and political parties competing in these elections, election results, analysis of the deter- minants of electoral behaviour, and an account of government formation following the elections.

One of the most useful contributions made by this series is the provision of data and documents (as implied by the common subtitle of all the volumes in the series). This includes English-language translations of relevant electoral laws, data on the political party system in the country in question, official electoral results, and information on social science survey data available for that country. Much of this material is difficult to locate in English translation (or indeed in any language), and these books therefore serve an extremely important scholarly function by making available to an Anglophone audience a range of original source material in a standardized format.

The studies in this series are relevant to the concerns of a wide array of audiences, from students of post-Communist politics to comparativists and practitioners in the sphere of electoral assistance. Albania's Democratic Elections, I99I-I997, edited by Kosta Barjaba, and Democratic Elections in Macedonia, I990- 2002, by Svetomir Skaric, are no exception. Of the two, the Akaric volume on Macedonia is the stronger (for reasons outlined below), but both texts make an important contribution to documenting party system development and elections in the post-Communist world.

Since competitive elections were introduced in Albania in the early I990s, they have had to compete with other informal means of allocating power, and the electoral experience in the Balkan country has not been without problems.

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