![]() ![]() Those first moments after communism's collapse were filled with antigovernmental passion-with a surge of anger directed against the state and against What we saw was striking, if understandable. Our aim was to watch and gather data about the transitions and how they progressed. The center's mission, however, was not to advise. ![]() These Americans came from a nation where constitutionalism had worked, yet apparently had no clue why. Some of these visitors literally sold constitutions to the emergingĬonstitutional republics the balance had innumerable half-baked ideas about how the new nations should be governed. Over the next five years I spent more hours on airplanes, and more mornings drinking bad coffee, than I care to remember.Įastern and Central Europe were filled with Americans telling former Communists how they should govern. Of the emerging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. Chicago had a center devoted to the study ![]() I had just graduated from law school in 1989, and in 1991 I began teaching at the University of Chicago. Was a new political regime, the beginnings of a new political society.įor constitutionalists (as I am), this was a heady time. Born in its place across Central and Eastern Europe No war or revolution brought communism to its end. A DECADE AGO, IN THE SPRING OF 1989, COMMUNISM IN EUROPE DIED-COLLAPSED, AS a tent would fall if its main post were removed. ![]()
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