Ideas and moral commitments matter. Reforms sometimes occur simply because a charismatic and committed leader pushes them through. Strong leaders can inspire people to accept major reforms that lesser personalities could never achieve. But strong leadership is generally a necessary, not a sufficient cause of political change. Past practice creates inertia. It is often easiest to go on as before – especially because the beneficiaries of the status quo will struggle against change. Choices made at one point in time foreclose other choices in the future. However, although history imposes constraints, it seldom forces one particular outcome. The challenge is to identify structural factors, apart from charismatic leadership, that create favorable conditions for reform.

We now have sufficient experience with reform efforts throughout the world to permit some well-grounded structural speculations. The argument in this chapter assumes that developing countries and those in the transition from socialism can learn from the historical experience of developed countries as well as the more recent experience of other developing countries. Of course, the lessons will have to be filtered through the particular situation of each nation, but some of the underlying political and economic incentives seem quite universal.

There are two basic models of the reform process: one based on the exercise of political power and the other based on a contractual model of consensus. Those who expect to lose from reform can be outvoted and outmaneuvered, or they can be coopted or compensated to accept change (Grindle and Thomas 1991: 134).