The article presents an analysis of the political and institutional setting that explain the production of coherent and stable economic reforms in societies undergoing the simultaneous transformations of politics and property. On the basis of a comparative study of the German, Hungarian and Czech cases, the authors sustain that contrary to conventional wisdom, political and institutional situations that constrain the autonomy of the executive tend to produce more coherent and stable reforms. In contrast, historical situations in which the executive is freed from constraints, produce less coherent and more unstable policies. The authors also introduce the concept of extended accountability to elaborate a theoretical and conceptual framework to understand the institutional sources of sustainable policies of economic transformations.
Political institutions; Institutional constraints; Policies of reform; Eastern Europe; Postsocialism