The collapse of communism in the early 1990s triggered one of the most significant waves of institutional transformation in modern history. However, not all post-communist transitions followed the same trajectory. 

It started with a classroom discussion on Allen's 2001 analysis of the Soviet economy and Djankov's research on post-communist transitions. As a teaching assistant from Russia, I noticed something striking about my homeland's trajectory compared to other former communist states. Three decades after the Soviet collapse, Russia continues to experience institutional volatility while many other post-communist countries have found relative stability. This divergence isn't merely about geography, natural resources, or Western assistance—it reflects a deeper historical pattern I will refer to as "double institutional vacuum."

What makes Russia's case distinctive? Unlike many Soviet-bloc countries, Russia cannot simply "return" to its pre-communist institutions. The 1917 Revolution didn't just replace one government with another—it completely dismantled a centuries-old imperial system that had been Russia's institutional backbone. After 1991, Russia faced not only the challenge of transitioning from communism (as did all Soviet states) but also the lingering absence of pre-communist institutional memory. The turbulence of the 1990s might be viewed not simply as post-Soviet chaos but as the delayed aftershock of imperial collapse decades earlier.

While other post-communist states could draw upon their pre-Soviet institutional heritage or Western European models, Russia's imperial past offers few adaptable blueprints for modern democratic governance. The country's historical experience with centralized power creates path dependencies that continue to shape its institutional evolution today. These observations raise important questions for institutional economics: How do societies rebuild when both their recent and distant institutional foundations have been thoroughly disrupted? What happens when the "returning to normalcy" path isn't available?

The Institutional Vacuum Spectrum

Not all post-communist countries faced the same depth of institutional challenges. We can conceptualize an "institutional vacuum spectrum" based on several key factors:

• Depth of pre-communist institutional disruption

• Mode of communist incorporation (revolutionary vs. imposed)

• Duration of communist rule

• Preservation of alternative institutional memory

• Access to external institutional models

Countries with the deepest "double vacuum" experienced revolutionary dismantling of imperial systems, followed by decades of communist rule, leaving them with neither viable pre-communist institutions to restore nor successful integration of alternative models after communism collapsed.

Beyond the Binary: Patterns of Post-Communist Institutional Development

Like any analysis of post-communist transitions I consider several distinct institutional trajectories, starting with the most challenging case:

1. Deep Double Vacuum (Russia)

Russia represents the archetypal double vacuum case, facing the most profound institutional challenges after communism's collapse. The Romanov dynasty's collapse in 1917 eliminated institutions developed over centuries, creating the first institutional vacuum. Unlike constitutional monarchies that evolved gradually, the Russian imperial system represented a comprehensive institutional framework encompassing governance, law, property relations, and social organization. Soviet institutions were then established through revolutionary upheaval rather than gradual evolution or external imposition, creating a sharp break with previous institutional forms.

 With 74 years of communist rule, no living memory connected post-Soviet Russia to its pre-revolutionary institutional frameworks. Three generations had been socialized exclusively in Soviet institutions. As the central republic of the Soviet Union, communist institutions were most thoroughly embedded in Russia, making their collapse particularly disruptive compared to more peripheral areas where Soviet power was seen as partially foreign. Unlike smaller post-communist states, Russia's size, nuclear status, and great power identity complicated wholesale institutional borrowing from external models. 

This combination placed Russia in perhaps the deepest institutional vacuum in the post-Soviet space—unable to return to imperial institutions, with few traditional institutions to revive, and limited experience with national democratic institutions. The result has been what Gaddy and Ickes (2013) call "institutional stickiness"—where informal institutions from both imperial and Soviet periods persist despite formal institutional changes, creating a hybrid system resistant to comprehensive reform.

2. Parallel Deep Vacuums: Mongolia and Ethiopia

Russia's double vacuum experience finds parallels in other societies that experienced sequential imperial and communist institutional collapse. Mongolia presents a striking parallel: the collapse of the Qing suzerainty followed by the theocratic monarchy of Bogd Khan was swiftly replaced by communist rule in 1924, making Mongolia the world's second communist state. This transition eliminated Mongolia's distinctive institutional system combining Buddhist theocracy with elements of traditional nomadic governance. After 67 years of communism, Mongolia's democratic revolution in 1990 created conditions remarkably similar to Russia's—a society attempting to build modern democratic institutions without accessible pre-communist institutional templates. The historical institutions of the Buddhist theocracy and nomadic governance traditions had been so thoroughly dismantled that they could serve as cultural reference points but not as viable institutional frameworks to return to.

Ethiopia provides another compelling case: The ancient Solomonic Dynasty, culminating in Emperor Haile Selassie's reign, represented one of Africa's most enduring imperial institutions. Its abrupt overthrow in 1974 by the Derg and the establishment of a Marxist-Leninist state created Ethiopia's first institutional vacuum. The subsequent collapse of the communist regime in 1991 created the second vacuum. Ethiopia's post-1991 institutional reconstruction has been complicated by what Abbink (2006) calls "competing historical legitimacies"—ethnic federalism attempting to replace both imperial centralism and communist authoritarianism. The persistence of ethnic tensions and political instability suggest that Ethiopia continues to grapple with its double institutional legacy.

3. Neo-Traditional Hybridization (Central Asia)

Central Asian republics—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—reveal a distinctive variant of the institutional vacuum. Unlike Eastern Europe or the Baltics, these societies had no experience of modern national statehood before Soviet rule. Their pre-communist institutions were combinations of traditional tribal/clan structures, Islamic legal frameworks, and remnants of imperial administrative systems. The Basmachi resistance to Bolshevik conquest created what Collins (2006) terms a "revolutionary imperial conquest" model that thoroughly disrupted traditional institutions. Approximately 70 years of Soviet rule, with intensive modernization campaigns specifically targeting traditional institutions, effectively eradicated most living memory of pre-existing governance systems. Soviet modernization was particularly aggressive in targeting Islamic institutions and tribal governance structures. Despite this disruption, clan networks and informal religious practices persisted as "submerged institutions" beneath official Soviet structures. Jones Luong (2002) documents how these institutions remained influential beneath formal Soviet governance, allowing them to re-emerge in altered form after 1991.

The result is a three-way institutional negotiation rather than a simple binary vacuum. When communist institutions collapsed, these societies could partially revive traditional structures but had no modern national institutional templates to draw upon. This created distinctive hybrid systems combining Soviet legacies with revitalized traditional authority patterns. Kazakhstan developed a resource-backed authoritarian system with significant economic reform but limited political liberalization, with clan politics remaining influential within modern institutional frameworks. Turkmenistan established perhaps the most personalistic authoritarian system, with traditional tribal structures incorporated into a highly centralized presidential system.

4. Contested Institutional Orientation (Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova)

These countries occupy intermediate positions on the institutional vacuum spectrum, experiencing significant but incomplete institutional disruption. All experienced short periods of independence after imperial collapse (1917-1922) but with limited institutional consolidation. Ukraine's Rada, Georgia's Democratic Republic, and Moldova's brief unification with Romania created nascent but unconsolidated national institutions that could later serve as historical reference points. These regions experienced both revolutionary upheaval and external Soviet reconquest, creating more complex institutional breaks than in Central Europe but less comprehensive than in Russia itself. Significant regional differences in institutional memory preservation emerged, with western regions (incorporated later into the Soviet Union) maintaining stronger alternative institutional memories. Their position between Russia and Europe created ongoing "institutional contestation" between competing models, complicating post-Soviet development.

These factors have produced distinctively volatile institutional trajectories. Ukraine displays what Wolczuk (2001) calls "incomplete institutional nationalization," with strong regional variations in institutional preferences. The Orange Revolution (2004) and Euromaidan (2014) represent attempts to resolve this institutional contestation in favor of European models. Georgia has pursued the most explicitly Western-oriented institutional development despite significant setbacks and conflicts, with Rose Revolution reforms attempting comprehensive institutional restructuring. Moldova exhibits institutional fragmentation reflecting competing Romanian and Russian institutional influences, complicated by the unresolved Transnistria conflict.

5. Shallow Institutional Disruption (Central Europe)

Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and other Central European countries experienced what might be termed a "shallow vacuum," with several key factors mitigating institutional disruption. Though their monarchies collapsed around World War I, many fundamental institutions persisted or were quickly reconstituted in new forms. Unlike Russia's comprehensive imperial system, the Habsburg monarchy in Hungary and the partitioned governance in Poland existed alongside relatively autonomous civic, religious, and economic institutions. 

These countries also experienced significant periods of independence between imperial collapse and communist imposition (1918-1939/1945). Poland had its Second Republic, and Hungary had the Horthy regime. Ekiert (1996) notes that these interwar periods maintained significant institutional continuity with pre-imperial collapse structures. Unlike Russia's revolutionary path to communism, communism in Central Europe was largely imposed externally by Soviet military presence rather than emerging from domestic revolutionary movements. This created what Kornai (1992) terms "incomplete institutionalization" of communist principles. 

Another crucial difference is that with approximately 40-45 years under communist rule (versus 70+ for Russia), pre-communist institutional memory remained more accessible during transition. Many leaders of the 1989 transitions had pre-communist family memories or had been educated in pre-communist traditions. Institutions like the Catholic Church remained powerful parallel structures throughout the communist period. In Poland, the Church provided what Kubik (1994) calls an "alternative institutional sphere" that preserved non-communist organizational principles and social norms. Their position bordering Western Europe provided both ready institutional models and economic integration opportunities. The EU accession process served as a powerful external incentive for institutional reform.

These factors meant that when communism collapsed, these societies had viable pre-communist institutional traditions to draw upon and adapt, unlike Russia which could not realistically reconstitute its imperial institutions after such a prolonged absence.

6. Successful Institutional Reclamation (Baltic States)

The Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—represent the most successful post-communist transitions, with several distinctive advantages. All three experienced independence between 1918-1940, developing relatively robust national institutions before Soviet annexation. Soviet rule was imposed through military occupation rather than internal revolution. Importantly, the Baltic states never fully accepted the legitimacy of their incorporation into the USSR, maintaining what Mälksoo (2009) calls "legal continuity through occupation." Strong exile communities maintained pre-communist institutional memory and provided immediate post-communist expertise. As Pettai (2007) documents, many institutional designs were directly imported from exile communities that had preserved interwar constitutional traditions. Geographic proximity and cultural affinity to Nordic/German institutional models provided ready templates. Well-developed ties with neighboring Finland and Sweden offered Estonia and Latvia particularly accessible institutional blueprints. Additionally, the prospect of EU membership created powerful incentives for institutional development, with accession requirements providing clear institutional benchmarks. This combination allowed the Baltic states to effectively reclaim and modernize their pre-communist national institutions, achieving the most stable democratic transitions in the post-Soviet space.

7. Evolutionary Transitions: China and Vietnam

China and Vietnam provide instructive contrasts to the revolutionary institutional changes in the post-Soviet space. While China experienced imperial collapse (1911/1912) followed by communist revolution (1949), its post-1978 reforms have been characterized by what Naughton (2018) terms "growing out of the plan" rather than institutional rupture. Communist political institutions have remained intact while gradually incorporating market mechanisms. Both countries implemented economic reforms before political liberalization, allowing market institutions to develop within existing political frameworks. This avoided the simultaneous economic and political disruption that characterized many post-Soviet transitions. Despite communist revolution, many traditional social structures and values survived in altered form, particularly at the village level and in family organization. These provided institutional continuity beneath revolutionary changes. Unlike externally influenced post-Soviet transitions, reforms in China and Vietnam have been largely self-directed, allowing greater adaptation to local conditions and institutional legacies.

These evolutionary approaches to institutional change have produced greater economic growth but with different political outcomes than the revolutionary transitions of the post-Soviet space. By avoiding the "second vacuum" through gradual rather than revolutionary change, these countries have achieved greater institutional stability, albeit with different tradeoffs in terms of political liberalization.

Policy Implications: Differentiated Approaches to Institutional Development

This institutional vacuum spectrum framework suggests that one-size-fits-all transition prescriptions are likely to fail. Countries at different points on the spectrum require differentiated approaches:

1. Deep vacuum countries (Russia, Mongolia, Ethiopia) may benefit from:

   • Gradual, sequential institution-building that acknowledges the absence of usable historical templates

   • Policies that recognize the need for new legitimizing frameworks rather than attempting to resurrect irretrievably lost structures

   • Institutional innovations that address the specific historical legacies of both imperial and communist collapse

2. Hybrid cases (Central Asia) might leverage:

   • Formalization and modernization of surviving traditional institutions

   • Recognition of clan and regional networks as potential building blocks rather than obstacles

   • Differentiated institutional development that acknowledges regional and cultural variations

3. Evolutionary transitions (China, Vietnam) suggest advantages of:

   • Sequential rather than simultaneous economic and political reforms

   • Institutional layering rather than wholesale replacement

   • Preservation of institutional stability during market reforms

4. Countries with shallow vacuums (Central Europe, Baltics) can more successfully implement:

   • More rapid institutional transplantation from compatible models

   • Leveraging of surviving pre-communist institutional memory

   • Integration with external institutional frameworks like the EU

Conclusion: Rethinking Institutional Development

The institutional vacuum spectrum helps explain why countries that appear superficially similar in their communist and post-communist experiences have diverged so dramatically in their outcomes. It suggests that the depth and nature of historical institutional disruptions, particularly the irrevocable dismantling of imperial systems, may be more critical factors in determining transition outcomes than economic policies alone.

This framework offers a more nuanced understanding of institutional development challenges than simplistic "good institutions" prescriptions. It recognizes that countries facing profound institutional vacuums may need to develop distinctive institutional arrangements that acknowledge their unique historical trajectories rather than attempting to import institutional models wholesale from different historical contexts.

The most successful transitions have occurred where countries could reclaim and modernize pre-communist institutional frameworks while the most challenging transitions occur where both imperial and communist institutional legacies have been thoroughly disrupted, leaving societies with few historical templates to guide their institutional reconstruction.

References

Abbink, J. (2006). Discomfiture of democracy? The 2005 election crisis in Ethiopia and its aftermath. African Affairs, 105(419), 173-199.

Allen, R. C. (2001). The rise and decline of the Soviet economy. Canadian Journal of Economics, 34(4), 859-881.

Collins, K. (2006). Clan politics and regime transition in Central Asia. Cambridge University Press.

Djankov, S. (2014). The microeconomics of post-communist transformation. In The Great Rebirth: Lessons from the Victory of Capitalism over Communism (pp. 121-146). Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Ekiert, G. (1996). The state against society: Political crises and their aftermath in East Central Europe. Princeton University Press.

Gaddy, C. G., & Ickes, B. W. (2013). Bear traps on Russia's road to modernization. Routledge.

Jones Luong, P. (2002). Institutional change and political continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Power, perceptions, and pacts. Cambridge University Press.

Kornai, J. (1992). The socialist system: The political economy of communism. Princeton University Press.

Kubik, J. (1994). The power of symbols against the symbols of power: The rise of solidarity and the fall of state socialism in Poland. Pennsylvania State University Press.

Mälksoo, L. (2009). The Baltic states and international law. In The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law. Oxford University Press.

Naughton, B. (2018). The Chinese economy: Adaptation and growth (2nd ed.). MIT Press.

Pettai, V. (2007). The construction of state identity and its legacies: Legal restorationism in Estonia. Ab Imperio, 2007(3), 403-426.

Wolczuk, K. (2001). The moulding of Ukraine: The constitutional politics of state formation. Central European University Press.