The paper challenges some of the literature on transition by arguing that contemporary states, regardless of whether they are in transition or consolidated, are being both “hollowed out” and “hardened” by the challenges of governing contemporary societies. Using a scheme devised by Thomas Carothers, from feckless pluralism to dominant-party politics it explores whether models of political development based on trajectories of transition to some standard democratic ideal are less useful than those that look to how patterns of political development are being generated by the much deeper process of the hollowing out of political epicentres. Taking Russia and Italy as different cases producing the same outcomes, we will demonstrate how politics without a centre is leading to “dominant power politics” in the former and feckless pluralism in the latter. The comparison will raise important questions about the nature of political development in a broader Europe.
