Economic Liberalism and Its Rivals

Part I. Theory and Methodology: 1. A natural experiment; 2. A theory of international order; 3. Three international trajectories; 4. Liberalism and its rivals: history, typology, and measurement; Part II. Contingent Selection and Systematic Effects: Country-Level Analyses of Elite Selection, Ideational Change, and Institutional Choice, 1991-2002: 5. The Baltic states and Moldova; 6. Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine; 7. The Caucasus; 8. Central Asia; Part III. Comparing Cases: 9. Alternative explanations and statistical tests; 10. Smoking guns: a causal history of institutional choice; 11. Conclusions and implications of the analysis.

'This book is not only an important contribution to post-communist studies. It is also a deliberate attempt to chart a novel theoretical position that challenges current orthodoxies from the perspective of a scholarly tradition whose growth seems to have reached a new threshold of relevance.' Paul Dragos Aligica, George Mason University, Perspectives on Politics 'Why do different countries make different choices when it comes to international economic institutions? Darden sees the post-Soviet states as an ideal test case, because they began with similar characteristics and histories but nonetheless chose differently ... International relations theorists will find the effort a genuine contribution to a key debate. General readers will benefit from what is the most thorough review available of the economic foreign policies of nearly all 15 former Soviet republics during the 1990s.' Robert Levgold, Foreign Affairs 'Drawing on the natural experiment that was the collapse of the USSR, this superb analysis of distinct economic trajectories among the former Soviet republics demonstrates that economic ideas led policymakers to adopt divergent policies regarding membership in international institutions. Darden's meticulously researched and incisively argued account transforms our understanding of post-communist policymaking, and of the causal role of ideas in institutional choice.' Anna Grzymala-Busse, University of Michigan 'Will the post-Soviet states join the global economy, reintegrate with Russia, or go it alone? At a time when Russia is attempting to reshape its 'near abroad,' Keith Darden has provided us a theoretically innovative and much-needed study of the foreign economic policies of countries about which we still know far too little.' Jeffrey Kopstein, University of Toronto 'The book has a clear and strong argument about the role of ideas in economic policymaking. The author traces how elites in the states to emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union adopt