The postsocialist transformation in central and eastern Europe
By: GRESKOVITS, Béla
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ArticlePublisher: São Paulo : Editora 34, out./dez. 2002Revista de Economia Política = Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 22, 4 , p. 15-29Abstract: What is attempted in the East is catching up with the West from a recent position of worse-than-Latin-American economic backwardness. Until now populations, that were sentenced to political patience by the logic of poor democracies, have reluctantly backed this enormous effort. Central and Eastern Europes post-socialist path is characterized by an increasingly discredited ideology of a return to Europe and a non-European combination of substitute institutions of development: radical opening towards the World economy, damaged institutions of labor representation, eroded state capacity, and often strong private and foreign dominance in the financial and other strategic sectors. There is a chance for a few countries to succeed. Yet various development traps may be more typical to the outcome than a Great Spurt in the Gerschenkronian sense
What is attempted in the East is catching up with the West from a recent position of worse-than-Latin-American economic backwardness. Until now populations, that were sentenced to political patience by the logic of poor democracies, have reluctantly backed this enormous effort. Central and Eastern Europes post-socialist path is characterized by an increasingly discredited ideology of a return to Europe and a non-European combination of substitute institutions of development: radical opening towards the World economy, damaged institutions of labor representation, eroded state capacity, and often strong private and foreign dominance in the financial and other strategic sectors. There is a chance for a few countries to succeed. Yet various development traps may be more typical to the outcome than a Great Spurt in the Gerschenkronian sense
v. 22, n. 4(88)
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