differences. Preuss notes that when the constitutional state gained favor in North America, it was founded on the principle of the unitary state; it was not designed to address the lack of national identity which is found throughout Europe - and which is counter to the concept of the constitutional state (48). "Measured in terms of socioeconomic modernization," writes Helga A. Welsh, "Central and Eastern European countries had reached a level that was considered conducive to the emergence of pluralistic policies" (19). It seemed that the sole reason the downfall of communism, as it were, took so long was the veto power of the Soviet Union. According to theories of modernization, the higher the levels of socioeconomic achievement, the greater the pressure for open competition and, ultimately, democracy. As such, the nations in Eastern and Central Europe were seen as "anomalies in socioeconomically highly-developed countries where particularly intellectual power resources have become widespread" (Welsh 19). Due to their longtime adherence to communist policies, these nations faced great difficulty in making the transition to a pluralist system as well as a market economy. According to Preuss, these problems were threefold: The genuine economic devastations wrought by the communist regimes, the transformation of the social and economic classes of the command economy into the social and economic classes of a capitalist economy and, finally, the creation of a constitutional structure for political entities that lack the undisputed integrity of a nation state (48). With such problems as these to contend with in re-engineering their entire economic and political systems, the people of East Germany seemed to be in a particularly enviable position. Economically, they were poised to unite with one of the richest countries, having one of the strongest economies, in the entire world. In the competition for fore...
