[On Baltic Slovenia and Adriatic Lithuania: a qualitative comparative analysis of patterns in post-communist transformation]
ENIn this rich book Zenonas Norkus aims to develop a general theory of patterns of post-communist transitions, constructed using the method of multi-value comparative qualitative analysis. He goes to great lengths to avoid the teleological traps of transitology in explaining the ’entire spectrum of economic and political outcomes of post-communist transformation’ (p. 13). Even more ambitiously, the author aims to explicate the entire spectrum of political and economic outcomes of the post-socialist transformations. Norkus complements an impressive methodological display with in-depth historical inquiries. On the other hand, it seems legitimate to ask: does this allow the author to offer innovative insights, or does this amount to a re-iteration of the ’fanciful’, yet rigid, comparative impetus of transition studies? This represents the lingering question for a work that surprisingly juxtaposes a very refi ned small intra-Baltic comparison, with a rather rigid, overarching comparison, that echoes the forcing and oftentimes static ’state-of-theart’ of political science transition studies [p. 566].
