新制度学派对后共产主义国家制度变迁的探索

与历史制度主义、社会学制度主义和理性选择等学派有关制度变迁的解释不同,以奥菲、约翰逊等人为代表的部分新制度主义者在详细阐述后共产主义国家特殊政治、经济和社会条件的基础上,提出了制度变迁的路径偶然理论.1]这一理论认为,在苏、东剧变后产生的后共产主义国家,制度变迁的路径选择完全是偶然的.这种偶然性表现在这些国家新掌权者偶然的政策选择上,偶然的政策选择在制度遗产、国家能力和政策顺序等因素的干预作用下,制度变迁以消极型制度设计或积极型制度设计的方式发生.路径偶然理论一定程度上解释了后共产主义国家制度变迁的方式,也反映了制度变迁研究方法的创新,但同时也存在明显的缺陷.

A Neo-institutionalist Probe into the Institutional Change in Post-communist Countries

Different from the explanations of historical institutionalism, sociological institutionalism and rationale choice, some neo-institutionalists represented by Offe and Johnson, after a detailed expounding of the special politics, economy and social conditions of the post-communist countries, put forward the theory of path contingency about institutional transformation. According to this theory, in those post-communist countries founded after the sudden upheaval in Russia and other East European countries, the path choice of the institutional transformation was contingent, which finds expression in the contingent policy choice when new leaders came to power in those countries. Since this contingent policy choice was intervened by institutional legacies, state capacity and policy sequencing, institutional transformation took place in the form of passive institutional design or active institutional design. Path contingency explains to some extent the manner of institutional transformation in post0communist countries, and reflects the originality in the study of institutional transformation. But it has obvious shortcomings.