Review essay: East European parties and the state

A review essay that I wrote for Czech Sociological Review last year, that burst Incredible Hulk like from what was originally conceived as small conventional book review is now available has appeared in the journal's online archive. The essay reviews two similarly conceived books about the relationship between party competition and political abuse of the state bureaucracy in Central and Eastern Europe: Anna Gryzmala-Busse's Rebuilding Leviathan and Conor O'Dwyer's Runaway Statebuilding. The essay is downloadable here as are replies/rejoinders from the two authors, which can be found here and here. There is, however, not too much less blood on the carpet - certainly less than in my Lisbon hotel room. The perfect political science book hasn't been written after all and when people start devoting critical essays to your work, it's perhaps a sign that you have made it.