is the
             unsatisfactory ability of a constitution to remedy the problems
             of nationalism and ethnic 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 lasses of a capitalist economy and,
             finally, the creation of a constitutional structure for
             political entities that lack the undisputed integrity of a nation
             With such problems as these to contend with in re-
             engineering their entire economic and political systems,
             ...