This book examines how novel institutional forms emerge when actors creatively reinterpret and reconfigure imported or imposed institutional models, using case studies from East Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

Introduction
The Dilemma of Institutional Adaptation and the Role of Syncretism; D.C.Galvan & R.Sil
PART I: POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
Syncretism and Local-Level Democracy in Senegal; D.C.Galvan
Institutional Syncretism and the Chinese Armed Forces; T.Bickford
Institutional Syncretism in Argentina's Party System and Peronist Political Culture; P.Ostiguy
(En)Durable Syncretism: Hizballah in the "Space Between"; S.Philbrick Yadav
PART II: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
The Dynamics of Institutional Adaptation and the Fruitful Emergence of Managerial Syncretism in Japan; R.Sil
Legal Syncretism and Family Change in Urban and Rural China; N.J.Diamant
Working Is Celebrating: The Syncretic Politics of Labor Transformation in Rural
Zambia; P.Hoon
Pathways of Institutional Diffusion Under Leninism: A Historical Comparison of
Romania and Hungary; C.Chen
Brazil's 1964-1967 Economic Stabilization Plan as Institutional Syncretism; C.Kearney

DENNIS. C. GALVAN is Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations, University of Oregon. RUDRA SIL is Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania.