Introduction PART I. State- and institution-building — a framework for analysis Chapter 1: The state and state-building definitions and debates The state and state-building Fiscal perspectives on the state Regimes and states: the missing link in the transition debate Potential contributions of post-Soviet cases to general theories of state-building Chapter 2: A framework for assessing states: size, capacity, and quality The three aspects of the state States as problems and solutions under various regimes The size of the state State capacity: decision-making, implementation, and control Chapter 3: The dynamic of change: state-building as institution building State-building as institutional change –deterioration and re-building The costs and risks of institutional change Types of institutional change The importance of formal-informal discrepancies Chapter 4: A model of post-Soviet state-building trajectories The casual model Individual and casual factors Four state-building trajectories Summary PART II. State-building in Ukraine Chapter 5: State-building in the post-Soviet region The Soviet state and its fiscal system Institutional deterioration: perestroika and the break-up of the Soviet Union State-building in the post-Soviet ‘universe’ Exploring some quantitative relationships: level of development and political consolidation Summary Chapter 6: From Soviet breakdown to disordered independence From Soviet republic to independent Ukraine The great depression: economic crisis after independence The challenge of nation-building Struggles for power and institutional weakness A fiscal system in crisis The first steps of state-building Chapter 7: A new trajectory taking shape Economic stabilization and virtualization The bid for presidential consolidation State-society relations – the rise of political-business groups and weak democratic accountability External factors Stabilizing the fiscal system Shaping and distorting the new state Chapter 8: The second transition From hybrid regime to unconsolidated democracy Economic recovery and socio-economic policies of the new government The power of civil society and the continuing importance of opaque groups External influences on the rise Fiscal developments: reforms and revelations From Kuchma to Yushenko: Re-tooling the state Summary: the state-building process in Ukraine as reflected in the fiscal system Section 4 Chapter 9: Averting institutional change: the case of Belarus Political developments: from liberalization to democracy Economic developments: preserving the command economy Belarus’ international situation State-society relations in Belarus Fiscal policies Belarus: the strong state that does not want to be a state PART III. Chapter 10: Lithuania: Moving towards a Western model Political developments: early elite re-configuration and after Economic developments: the great leap from communism to capitalism State-society relations in Lithuania Fiscal and budgetary system State capacity and its determinants in Lithuania Chapter 11: The ‘authoritarianizing’ route to recovery: the case of Russian tax reform The stage: political power and oligarchic groups The economic background to reform State-society relations Fiscal crisis and tax reform: surveying explanations From drag to leap: the gestation and eventual success of tax reform From prolonged deterioration to unfinished recovery: the Russian path of state-building Chapter 12: Conclusion Appendix Bibliography