In Chapter 5 it was argued that economic reform in Eastern Europe was characterized by policy responsiveness. But doubts still remain. First, the statistical analysis only shows average effects across the region, not the relation between public opinion and individual policy choices. It is also limited to a single and possibly unique policy area. Most telling is that the statistical analysis treats responsiveness itself as a black box, where public opinion goes in one side and policy comes out of the other.

It is important then to open up this black box and see how, when, and why politicians follow public opinion. How did politicians perceive public opinion and the policy choices open to them? What induced them to favor one choice over another or package and sequence multiple choices? What sort of strategies did they use to introduce key policies and why did they choose those strategies? These questions are difficult to answer with aggregate statistical analysis but can probed with a qualitative, case study approach. That is the path taken in the following chapters. (I do not systematically consider electoral accountability and mandate responsiveness in the case studies because they are less amenable to case study analysis; they more closely resemble a black box connecting input and output.)

I follow Alexander George's (George and Bennett 2005: Chapter 3) method of structured, focused comparison, which has become the workhouse of qualitative methodology.