ABSTRACT
The virtue of comparison lies in its ability to reveal and to give more precise contours to features that would otherwise have escaped the attention of the observer. Only comparison can break the "tyranny of normalcy". Comparing Vienna or Austria to East European cities or societies is a venture that holds much ambivalence for Austrians. All theorizing based on empirical fact confronts a level-of-analysis problem. Selecting a specific level requires a decision on the relative importance of three factors: personality, group, and organization. The German sociologist Norbert Elias, whose work is receiving wide recognition after decades of oblivion, spoke of the basic (con)figurations in a given society, the specific tangle of mutual dependencies that is characteristic of a specific stage of development. The decay of close-knit groups is a precondition for the success of democratic institutions. Political modernization must rest on the foundation of a "great society" if the ideals outlined by constitutional and democratic theory are to materialize.
