Law, Collective Action and Culture : Condominium Governance in Comparative Perspective

Condominium law reforms are taking place at a growing pace around the world. Such reforms raise particular challenges in transitional economies, in which the need to create the legal infrastructure for multiunit, homeownership-based housing follows complex processes of urbanisation and a transition to some form of a market economy. This article focuses on one of the key challenges of such reforms, that which deals with the ability of homeowners to engage in effective and enduring self-governance of the condominium through the establishment of a homeowner association (‘HOA'). In crafting the legal mechanisms that enable condominium governance, lawmakers have an essential normative role of determining the underlying societal values and goals that should guide this type of collective action. At the same time, for such a legal design to be effective, lawmakers must consider the actual congruence between the types of collective action envisioned by the reform and the prevailing cultural orientations, values and beliefs that practically guide everyday interactions in a certain society or parts thereof. Working through the theoretical framework of law, collective action and culture, this article offers a comparative study of condominium law reforms and their subsequent on-the-ground implementation in two prominent economies in transition: China and Russia. It compares these case studies with the development of condominium governance in the United States, seeking to underscore the dynamic relations between private law reforms, collective-action organisations and the prospects for incremental cultural change