ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a case study of agencification in a ‘transitional’ state – one of the central and eastern European states which is in transition from a Communist to a liberal democratic regime. Although Latvia itself is a small country, and one with a number of distinctive characteristics, several of the larger features of the Latvian ‘story’ are echoed in other transitional states. Hopefully, therefore, the analysis here may identify a set of key variables, the importance of which is sustained in other transitional states (and perhaps in some parts of the developing world – see Chapters 11 and 15), not solely in Latvia.
