THE QUESTION WHETHER WESTERN LEGAL INSTITUTIONS and practices may be successfully transplanted in fledgling East European democracies figured prominently in early scholarly discourses on post-communist transformation. Fascinated by the democratic reforms that swept through the former 'second world', intellectuals and observers were quick to revisit the 'big questions' that frame the study of constitutionalism in the modem world: is it possible to replicate the political essence of occidental rule of law in non-Western contexts? What are the limits of institutional engineering in social milieux often marked by illiberal political traditions and non-democratic national cultures? Will the rush to find shortcuts to Western 'normalcy' result in the creation of solid bases of constitutionalism-or in the construction of rickety institutions that may endure but will never live up to the expectations of hubristic reformers? Is it reasonable to expect that institutional imports like a constitutional court may exert real influence over unruly, unscrupulous, unmalleable political actors?
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Venelin I. Ganev (2003) studied this question.
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