INTRODUCTION

Events in both Eastern Europe and the former USSR illustrate the intimate connection between economic and political processes. Those events also remind us that political and economic institutions are human creations, and that when those institutions are poorly designed, politicaleconomic failure is a direct consequence. It is axiomatic, then, that the transition to stable and prosperous societies in those former Communist states requires careful attention to the design and implementation of democratic institutions.

Unfortunately, research grounded in a well-developed framework of scientific discourse that serves as a practical guide to the construction of stable democratic institutions is virtually nonexistent. There are exceptions, the most important being The Federalist Papers and some other parts of the debate surrounding the ratification of the United States Constitution. With respect to the contemporary literature, perhaps the two most evident exceptions are Robert Dahl's Preface to Democratic Theory and William H. Riker's Liberalism against Populism. However, although there are areas of agreement, Dahl and Riker posit diametrically opposite conditions for a stable political system and reach different conclusions about a constitution's role in facilitating stability. Riker argues that “the fundamental method to preserve liberty is to preserve ardently our traditional constitutional restraints.” Dahl, in contrast, asserts that “constitutional rules are not crucial, independent factors in maintaining democracy…. Constitutional rules are mainly significant because they help to determine what particular groups are to be given advantages or handicaps in the political struggle [and] … to assume that [the United States] remained democratic because of its Constitution seems to me an obvious reversal of the relation; it is much more plausible to suppose that the Constitution has remained because our society is essentially democratic.”