Very few studies have ventured to explore the shift in economic ideas that were such a critical factor in shaping and understanding the East European transition process. Paul Dragos Aligica and Anthony J. Evans have seized upon the potential that this crucial case has to illuminate the larger phenomenon of diffusion and adoption of economic ideas. Two different but related research agendas are developed: the study of the spread of 'neoliberalism' as seen from the perspective of Eastern European post-communist evolutions and the study of Eastern European transition as seen from an ideas-centered perspective.Combining a distinctive synthesis of the existing data about the spread of neoliberal economic ideas in Central and Eastern Europe with an analysis of the processes at work, the authors challenge a series of misunderstandings and myths about the spread of neoliberal economic ideas. The disputed topics include: the myth of an Eastern European rush to embrace the theories and ideas that may be considered the mark of 'market fundamentalism'; the notion that a harsh 'neoliberal dogmatism' was somehow imposed on the region from outside; the idea that the standardization and regimentation of economic thinking was a result of the spread of the Western way of doing economics; and the belief that the Eastern Europeans passively embraced this uniformity and standardization due to pressure from the Westerners. This unusual synthesis will appeal to scholars in economics, political science, communist/post-communist studies and new institutionalism, as well as policymakers.

The relationship between the Austrian tradition and Bloomington institutionalism has been part of a larger intellectual evolution of a family of schools of thought that coevolved in multiple streams over the last 100 years or so. The Bloomington scholars, once they delineated the broader parameters of their own research program, started to reconstruct, reinterpret, and in many cases simply rediscover and reinvent Austrian insights and themes. As such, they created the possibility of giving those insights and themes new interpretations and new applications, in novel circumstances with new research priorities, in particular, public administration, governance and collective action, and entrepreneurship in non-market settings. Was there a programmatic and explicit effort to recover and reinvent the Austrian tradition? The answer has to be an emphatic 'no'. But that is precisely the reason why the Ostroms' work should be interesting to scholars working in the Austrian tradition. The thematic convergence and the compatibility and complementarity between the Austrian and Bloomington schools is driven by their internal underlying theoretical logic and by the logic of problem solving. Upon closer inspection, the underlying familial and genealogical connections reveal themselves again and again. The convergence and interplay between these two intellectual traditions is rich and productive. On the one hand, it stands as a demonstration of the applied relevance of the set of approaches and issues that we traditionally associate with the Austrian tradition. On the other hand, it is a challenge to further explore and elaborate this area. This volume is an attempt to respond to that challenge.

In this book Paul Dragos Aligica revisits the theory of political self-governance in the context of recent developments in behavioral economics and political philosophy that have challenged the foundations of this theory. Building on the work of the 'Bloomington School' created by Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom and Public Choice political economy co-founder Vincent Ostrom, Aligica presents a fresh conceptualization of the key processes at the core of democratic-liberal governance systems involving civic competence and public entrepreneurship. The result is not only a re-assessment and re-articulation of the theories constructed by the Bloomington School of Public Choice, but also a new approach to several cutting-edge discussions relevant to governance studies and applied institutional theory, such as the debates generated by the recent waves of populism, paternalism and authoritarianism.

In this book Paul Dragos Aligica revisits the theory of political self-governance in the context of recent developments in behavioral economics and political philosophy that have challenged the foundations of this theory. Building on the work of the 'Bloomington School' created by Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom and Public Choice political economy co-founder Vincent Ostrom, Aligica presents a fresh conceptualization of the key processes at the core of democratic-liberal governance systems involving civic competence and public entrepreneurship. The result is not only a re-assessment and re-articulation of the theories constructed by the Bloomington School of Public Choice, but also a new approach to several cutting-edge discussions relevant to governance studies and applied institutional theory, such as the debates generated by the recent waves of populism, paternalism and authoritarianism.

Social Values and Identities in the Black Sea Region focuses on the nexus between geopolitical challenges and cultural framework in the Black Sea region. The volume shows how the common inheritance interferes with different religious and political institutional backgrounds, fostering the formation of a particular cultural area. The interdisciplinary approach combines contributions from the domains of sociology, political science, international relations, and security studies and employs qualitative and quantitative analyses.

This volume brings a set of key works by Elinor Ostrom, co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, together with those of Vincent Ostrom, one of the originators of Public Choice political economy. The two scholars introduce and expound their approaches and analytical perspectives on the study of institutions and governance. The book puts together works representing the main analytical and conceptual vehicles articulated by the Ostroms to create the Bloomington School of public choice and institutional theory. Their endeavours sought to 're-establish the priority of theory over data collection and analysis', and to better integrate theory and practice. These efforts are illustrated via selected texts, organised around three themes: the political economy and public choice roots of their work in creating a distinct branch of political economy; the evolutionary nature of their work that led them to go beyond mainstream public choice, thereby enriching the public choice tradition itself; and, finally, the foundational and epistemological dimensions and implications of their work.

How do we conceptualize and theorize about the social organization of ideology? How should we think methodically-in theoretically and empirically informed ways-about the institutionalization of indoctrination and propaganda? How should we approach the study of the social and political instrumentation of ideology in regimes that assume that historical missions of messianic social change are the stringent organizing and legitimization principles of their very existence? This book is an attempt to answer these questions. On the one hand, this book explores key elements of conceptualization and theoretical framing of the phenomena associated with the institutionalization of indoctrination. New potential venues of theoretical elaboration are identified, and in several cases, these venues are tentatively engaged. On the other hand, this book balances the exploratory theoretical approach with an exploratory historical investigation. Concentrating on the case study of Communist Romania, this book charts various facets of the institutionalization of the "political-ideological commissars" in the education system, while tracking their evolution. The two dimensions of the book offer, in conjunction, a contribution to our understanding of the institutional arrangements of indoctrination and their associated social monitoring and control practices, as well as to our awareness regarding their avatars, as manifested in recent history.

The chapters in this volume explore, engage and expand on the key thinkers and ideas of the Austrian, Virginia, and Bloomington schools of political economy. The book emphasizes the continuing relevance of the contributions of these schools of thought to our understanding of cultural, social, moral and historical processes for interdisciplinary research in the social sciences and humanities. An analysis of human action that deliberate divorces it from cultural, social, moral and historical processes will (at least) limit and (at worst) distort our understanding of human phenomena. The diversity in topics and approaches will make the volume of interest to readers in a variety of fields, including: anthropology, communications, East Asian languages & literature, economics, law, musicology, philosophy, and political science.

Classical liberalism entails not only a theory about the scope of government and its relationship with the market but also a distinct view about how government should operate within its proper domain of public choices in non-market settings. Building on the political economy principles underpinning the works of diverse authors such as Friedrich Hayek, James Buchanan and Vincent and Elinor Ostrom, this book challenges the technocratic-epistocratic perspective in which social goals are defined by an aggregated social function and experts simply provide the means to attain them. The authors argue that individualism, freedom of choice, and freedom of association have deep implications on how we design, manage and assess our public governance arrangements. The book examines the knowledge and incentive problems associated with bureaucratic public administration while contrasting it with democratic governance. Aligica, Boettke, and Tarko argue that the focus should be on the diversity of opinions in any society regarding "what should be done" and on the design of democratic and polycentric institutions capable of limiting social conflicts and satisfying the preferences of as many people as possible. They thus fill a large gap in the literature, the public discourse, and the ways decision makers understand the nature and administration of the public sector.

James M. Buchanan, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1986, was a pioneer of public choice and constitutional political economy, as well as contributing to many fields of study, including philosophy, political science, and public finance. Each chapter in this volume seeks to explore, critique, and emphasize the continuing relevance of the vast contributions of Buchanan to our understanding of political economy and social philosophy. The diversity in topics and approaches will make the volume of interest to readers in a variety of fields, and accessible to scholars from a variety of backgrounds providing the opportunity to further a cross-disciplinary exploration and discussion on market process theory.

The work of Elinor and Vincent Ostrom represents a distinctive contribution to the study of political economy, public policy and administration, collective action, and governance theory. Efforts to present a comprehensive overview of the Bloomington School that grew around the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis (now renamed the Ostrom Workshop), which they founded more than 40 years ago, received new impetus with the award of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science to Elinor Ostrom in 2009. Since then, renewed attempts have been made to map the Ostroms' contributions to theories of polycentric governance and collective action, and to multi-methods and comparative institutional analysis of ways of managing social and ecological systems, common pool resources, public economies, and metropolitan reform. The open-ended and multiform nature of the Ostroms' research program defies a single comprehensive overview; yet, it is a stimulus towards both creativity and disciplinary cross-fertilization in social science research. What sets this volume apart is that it brings together theory and practice, models and work on the ground, design and creativity, empirics and norms, to outline the significance of the Ostroms' research program for the future. Each contribution to the volume takes the Ostromian perspective as the point of departure, amplifies it and explores the ground for future work by engaging with other approaches and areas of research with which the Bloomington School has some affinities. This way of testing and extending the ideas and methods of the Ostroms is particularly appropriate since their research program, initiated and nurtured through the Workshop, has always been in-between different fields and sub-fields in the social sciences (political science, economics, public administration, law, history, anthropology), cultivating a strong interdisciplinary way of doing research and exploiting the virtuous circle between theory, analysis, model building, and empirical research. Engaging in a creative dialogue with ideas and methods of other research programs is a way of sharpening one's analytic tools, while renovating one's own vision of social research. This volume is a way of thinking through and beyond the Bloomington School.

Elinor Ostrom, co-recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics, argues that in studying social order, we should not be limited to only the conceptions of order derived from the work of Adam Smith and Thomas Hobbes. To be precise, we should not limit ourselves to theoretical frameworks of The State and to theoretical frameworks of The Market. We need approaches that match the extensive variety of institutional arrangements existent in the world. In this book, Paul Dragos Aligica discusses some of the most challenging ideas emerging out of the research program on institutional diversity associated with Ostrom and her associates, while outlining a set of new research directions and an original interpretation of the significance and future of this program.

By the time of his untimely death in 1983, Herman Kahn was recognized by both friends and intellectual adversaries as "one of the world's most creative and best minds." The current growing resurgence of interest in Kahn's ideas and intellectual legacy demonstrates the enduring relevance of his work. Yet, in spite of the constant influence of his arguments, there is a shortage of books summarizing Kahn's essential contributions, and thus his work is not as well known as it should be. The Essential Herman Kahn is an attempt to cope with this predicament and offer the public for the first time an anthology consisting of the essence of Kahn's work, organized thematically. The two decades that have passed since his death allow us today to approach his work undisturbed by the "sound and fury" of the many public debates and controversies he participated in and to focus on some of the deepest and most enduring dimensions of his intellectual contributions. The anthology will try to bring together, out of the several thousands pages published by Kahn during his life, the "essential Kahn," the most relevant, consequential and interesting themes, ideas and arguments defining his legacy. As such it will met the needs of those who are interested in Kahn's work but do not have the time and energy to access his out-of-print books, to make their way through the voluminous number of pages, and then to sort out the essential from the accidental, the perennial from the contextual.

By the time of his untimely death in 1983, Herman Kahn was recognized by both friends and intellectual adversaries as 'one of the world's most creative and best minds.' The current growing resurgence of interest in Kahn's ideas and intellectual legacy demonstrates the enduring relevance of his work. Yet, in spite of the constant influence of his arguments, there is a shortage of books summarizing Kahn's essential contributions, and thus his work is not as well known as it should be. The Essential Herman Kahn is an attempt to cope with this predicament and offer the public for the first time an anthology consisting of the essence of Kahn's work, organized thematically. The two decades that have passed since his death allow us today to approach his work undisturbed by the 'sound and fury' of the many public debates and controversies he participated in and to focus on some of the deepest and most enduring dimensions of his intellectual contributions. The anthology will try to bring together, out of the several thousands pages published by Kahn during his life, the 'essential Kahn, ' the most relevant, consequential and interesting themes, ideas and arguments defining his legacy. As such it will met the needs of those who are interested in Kahn's work but do not have the time and energy to access his out-of-print books, to make their way through the voluminous number of pages, and then to sort out the essential from the accidental, the perennial from the contextual.

This book focuses on the alternative paradigm, the pro-growth intellectual tradition that rejected the prophecies of doom and called for realism and pragmatism in dealing with the challenge of the future. Paul Dragos Aligica reconstructs and describes the basic elements of this tradition that emerged in the seventies as a response to the Club of Rome and the "limits to growth" movement. He outlines a comprehensive perspective on its methodological and conceptual foundations. Aligica uses the work of the two major founders of this alternative approach: Herman Kahn and Julian Simon. Herman Kahn was the first scholar and public intellectual to engage and refute the "doomsday" theses advanced by the Club of Rome and its followers. In his spirited and optimistic arguments he made a strong case for the feasibility, desirability and morality of global economic growth arguing that even given all the likely human, environmental, and material costs and risks, "the case is close to if not fully overwhelming." Julian Simon elaborated the "anti-doomsayers" lines opened by Kahn, further developing the emerging paradigm. He articulated new and precise arguments on issues such as population growth, natural resources scarcity and technological change, and reinforced Kahn's thesis that continued world economic development is a moral imperative as well as a practical desideratum. Together, Kahn and Simon managed to build the foundations on which rest the current counter-reaction to the "limits to growth" rhetoric and its initiatives. Both were not only public figures of great accomplishments and influence but also remarkable thinkers and personalities.

Elinor (Lin) Ostrom was awarded the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for her pathbreaking research on "economic governance, especially the commons"; but she also made important contributions to several other fields of political economy and public policy. The range of topics she covered and the multiple methods she used might convey the mistaken impression that her body of work is disjointed and incoherent. This four-volume compendium of papers written by Lin, alone or with various coauthors (most notably including her husband and partner, Vincent), supplemented by others expanding on their work, brings together the common strands of research that serve to tie her impressive oeuvre together. That oeuvre, together with Vincent's own impressive body of work, has come to define a distinctive school of political-economic thought, the "Bloomington School." Each of the four volumes is organized around a central theme of Lin's work. Volume 1 explores the roles played by the concept polycentricity in the disciplines of public administration, political science, and other forms of political economy. Polycentricity denotes a complex system of governance in which public authorities, citizens, and private organizations work together to establish and enforce the rules that guide their behavior. It encapsulates an approach toward policy analysis that blurs standard disciplinary boundaries between the social sciences. Throughout their long and remarkably productive careers, Elinor and Vincent Ostrom never tired of reminding us of the capacity of ordinary humans to transcend their own limitations by engaging with others in the myriad forms of collective action required to build and sustain a self-governing society. Their careers stand as exemplars of the proper relationship between rigorous scholarship and responsible citizenship.

James M. Buchanan, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1986, was a pioneer of public choice and constitutional political economy, as well as contributing to many fields of study, including philosophy, political science, and public finance. Each chapter in this volume seeks to explore, critique, and emphasize the continuing relevance of the vast contributions of Buchanan to our understanding of political economy and social philosophy. The diversity in topics and approaches will make the volume of interest to readers in a variety of fields, and accessible to scholars from a variety of backgrounds providing the opportunity to further a cross-disciplinary exploration and discussion on market process theory.