Reconfiguring Institutions Across Time and Space

DENNIS. C. GALVAN is Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations, University of Oregon. RUDRA SIL is Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania.

• Introduction The Dilemma of Institutional Adaptation and the Role of Syncretism; D.C.Galvan & R.Sil PART I: POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS Syncretism and Local-Level Democracy in Senegal; D.C.Galvan Institutional Syncretism and the Chinese Armed Forces; T.Bickford Institutional Syncretism in Argentina's Party System and Peronist Political Culture; P.Ostiguy (En)Durable Syncretism: Hizballah in the "Space Between"; S.Philbrick Yadav PART II: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS The Dynamics of Institutional Adaptation and the Fruitful Emergence of Managerial Syncretism in Japan; R.Sil Legal Syncretism and Family Change in Urban and Rural China; N.J.Diamant Working Is Celebrating: The Syncretic Politics of Labor Transformation in Rural Zambia; P.Hoon Pathways of Institutional Diffusion Under Leninism: A Historical Comparison of Romania and Hungary; C.Chen Brazil's 1964-1967 Economic Stabilization Plan as Institutional Syncretism; C.Kearney

'Dennis Galvan and Rudra Sil have assembled an exceptionally fine volume. Reconfiguring Institutions Across Time and Space is thoughtful, well-written and down-right interesting. Their focus on 'Institutional Syncretism' makes a significant advance in our understandings of institutional change, just as each of the substantive chapters gives us remarkably deep analyses of particular countries undergoing institutional transformation. I highly recommend this book.'- Sven Steinmo, European University Institute (EUI)'This is a timely book. It has long been an open secret that the wave of new institutionalist analyses have begun to founder on the problem of how to explain change. Stuck in a language of constraint, institutionalism often looks on silently as actors redesign the rules that are intended to constrain them. Galvan, Silandtheir collaborators present here an extremely innovative solution to this problem in the form of "syncretism". Emphasizing creative agency and focusing on processes of institutional recomposition in a broad array of both developing and developed country contexts, this volume makes great strides toward the development of an alternative, constructivist, and open-ended form of institutional analysis. Highly recommended for anyone interested in problems of development and change.'- Gary Herrigel, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago