This note offers three complementary comments on Sun Liping's essay, which appears in this issue. (1) The transition process China followed was indeed a unique path, but it is equally useful to distinguish among the divergent trajectories Eastern and Central European countries entered after the fall of communism. There are therefore three, rather than just two, trajectories leading out of socialism. (2) Nevertheless, there is evidence of some convergence among these trajectories during the past ten or so years. (3) Sun Liping concludes his article with a call for a sociology of practice. He recommends a focus on strategies of common people rather than elites. This is especially useful for the study of early stages of transitions, but with privatization of the publicly owned corporate sector, inter-elite struggle plays an increasing role in all former socialist societies.
Brugger, William (1976) Democracy and Organization in the Chinese IndustrialEnterprise (1948—1953). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2.
Burawoy, Michael (1996) “The state and economic involution: Russia through the Chinese lens.” World Development24, 6: 16—38.
3.
———( 2001a) “Transition without transformation: Russia's involutionary road to capitalism.” East European Politics and Society15, 2: 269—92.
4.
———( 2001b) “Neo-classical sociology.” American J. of Sociology106, 4: 1099—1120.
5.
Burawoy, Michael and Pavel Krotov (1992) “The Soviet transition from socialism to capitalism: worker control and economic bargaining.” American Sociological R.57, 1: 16—38.
6.
Coates, David (2000) Modes of Capitalism. London : Polity Press
7.
Eisenstadt, Shmuel (1991) “Some observation on the relationship between Confucianism, development and modernization.” Pp. 360—66 in Silke Krieger and Rolf Trauzettel (eds.), Confucianism and the Modernization of China. Mains: v. Hase and KoehlerVerlag.
8.
Esping-Andersen, Gösta (1990) Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
9.
Eyal, Gil, Ivan Szelenyi, and Eleanor Townsley (1998) Making Capitalism without Capitalists. London: Verso
10.
———( 2001) “The utopia of post-socialist theory and the ironic view of history of neo-classical sociology.” American J. of Sociology106, 4: 1121—28.
11.
———( 2003) “On irony: an invitation to neo-classical sociology .” Thesis Eleven73: 5—41.
12.
Garcelon, Marc (2005) Revolutionary Passage: From Soviet to Post-Soviet Russia. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press.
13.
Guo, Xiaoqin (2003) State and Society in China's Democratic Transition: Confucianism, Leninism and Economic Development. New York : Routledge.
Hall, Peter and S. Soskice [eds.] (2002) Varieties of Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
16.
King, Lawrence P. (2000) “Foreign direct investment and transition.” EuropeanJ. of Sociology41, 2: 189—224.
17.
King, Lawrence and Ivan Szelenyi (2005) “The new capitalism of Eastern Europe.” In Neil Smelser and Richard Swedberg (eds.), Handbook of Economic Sociology . Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
18.
———( 2006) “Max Weber's theory of capitalism and varieties of post-communist capitalisms.” Angewandte Sozialforschung24, 3—4: 175—85.
19.
Kornai, Janos (1994) “Transformational recession: the main causes.” J. of ComparativeEconomics19, 1: 39—63.
20.
Nee, Victor (1989) “A theory of market transition.” American Sociological R.54, 5: 663—81.
21.
———( 1992) “Organizational dynamics of market transition: hybrid forms, property rights, and mixed economy in China.” Administrative Science Q. 37: 1—27.
22.
O'Dwyer, Conor and Branislav Kovalcik (2007) “And the last shall be first: party system and second-generation economic reform in post-communist Europe.” Studies in Comparative International Development41, 4: 3—26.
23.
OI, Jean (1999) “Two decades of rural reform in China: an overview and assessment.” China Q.159: 616—29.
24.
Rona-Tas, Akos (1994) “The first shall be the last?” American J. of Sociology100, 1: 4—69.
25.
Sachs, Jeffrey (2005) The End of Poverty. London: Penguin.
26.
Szalai, Erzsébet (2006) Az ujkapitalizmus (Neo-capitalism). Budapest: UMK.
27.
Szelenyi, Ivan (1988) Socialist Entrepreneurs. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
28.
Szelenyi, Ivan and Eric Kostello (1996) “The market transition debate.” American J. of Sociology101, 4: 1082—96.
29.
Walder, Andrew (1996) “Market and inequality in transitional economies .” American J. of Sociology101, 4: 1060—73.
30.
———( 2003) “Elite opportunity in transitional economies.” American Sociological R.88: 899—916.
31.
Woodruff, David (1999) Money Unmade. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
32.
Yao, Souchou (2002) Confucian Capitalism: Discourse, Practice and the Myth of ChineseEnterprise. London : Routledge.
