Underpinnings of reform

To explain a major transformation of a society, it is not enough to analyse the motives and political policies of political leaders. Leaders and their policies respond to demands coming from society, their policies need legitimacy to be put into effect, political elites and the public alike have to be predisposed to change. To understand why private property, markets and a polyarchic form of politics were introduced, I consider developments from three dimensions. In this chapter, I outline some of the changes that were taking place in the countries that had adopted state socialism. In the next chapter I consider the role of social classes which provided the political and social ballast to movements for radical political and economic change. In Chapter 10, I turn to the ways in which exogenous interests and developments influenced internal changes. These factors constituted the environment to the political system — the conditions that precipitated social change. ¹