The Dorian Gray effect: winners as state breakers in postcommunism

This paper examines the relations between postcommunist states and the powe rful economic groups that dominated the early stages of postcommunist econo mic restructuring. The main argument is that the strategic actions of "winn ers" systematically undermine the capacity of state institutions and the or ganizational coherence of administrative agencies. Against the background o f a detailed study of one particular story of "postcommunist success", the rise of Multigroup in Bulgaria, I explore the concrete manifestations of "s tate weakness" in postcommunism, the nature of redistributive conflicts the former socialist societies, and the historical specificity of the processe s undermining the organizational bases of governance in the former Soviet w orld. (C) 2001 The Regents of the University of California. Published by El sevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.