From Convergence to Fragmentation: Uneven Regional Development, Industrial Restructuring, and the ‘Transition to Capitalism’ in Slovakia

1996 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Smith
Keyword(s):  
Uneven Development ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Dual Processes ◽  
East European ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
New Firm ◽  
Transition To Capitalism ◽  
Market Capitalism ◽  
State Socialist ◽  
Development Result

The transition from the state socialist model of development to one based upon a form of market capitalism is being met with a profound restructuring of the space-economies of Central and East European societies. This paper is an examination of the experience of this ‘transition’ in Slovakia. It is argued that, whereas a process of regional convergence took place under state socialism, we are presently witnessing the regional economic fragmentation of the Slovak economy. New forms of regional uneven development result from the combined effects of the collapse of the national economy, the globalisation and marketisation of economic life, and the interaction between local economic and industrial structures and strategies. By focusing upon the comparative dimensions of change in different regions we can begin to unpick some of the causal mechanisms underlying this trajectory of fragmentation. Of particular importance are the uneven development of new firm formation, foreign direct investment, and the expansion of trade with capitalist markets. The author examines the ability of regions in Slovakia to engage in these dual processes of marketisation and globalisation and finds that integration into the capitalist world economy is highly uneven.

scholarly journals China, Eastern Europe and Russia compared

2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (S) ◽  
pp. 85-93
Author(s):  
Ivan Szelenyi ◽  
Péter Mihályi
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Chinese Leader ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
East European ◽  
Tiananmen Square ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Transition To Capitalism ◽  
Market Capitalism

AbstractAfter the collapse of the Berlin Wall it was conceivable that China would follow the path towards the cessation of communism, as it happened in the successor states of the USSR, Yugoslavia and the East European satellite states of the Soviet Union. But the Communist Party of China (CPC) managed to retain control and avoided the Russian and East European collapse, a full-fledged transition to capitalism and liberal democracy. For a while, China was on its way to market capitalism with the possible outcome to turn eventually into a liberal democracy. This was a rocky road, with backs-and-forth. But the shift to liberal democracy did not happen. The massacre at Tiananmen Square in 1989, approved by Deng Xiaoping, was a more alarming setback than the contemporary Western observers were willing to realize. This paper presents an interpretation of the changes under present Chinese leader, Xi Jinping in a post-communist comparative perspective.

The Limits of Autarchy in the Periphery

2018 ◽  
pp. 32-64
Author(s):  
Besnik Pula
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
Regional Economic Integration ◽  
Trade Policies ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
The West ◽  
International Context ◽  
East European ◽  
Rapid Industrialization ◽  
State Socialist

This chapter provides an historical overview of Central and Eastern Europe’s integration into the Soviet economic sphere and its effects on patterns of industrialization and trade. It is organized in four parts. First, the chapter discusses the international context of the early Cold War, economic reconstruction and trade policies, and the formation of Comecon. The chapter then turns to the post-Stalin period, when Soviet leaders begin to increasingly see Comecon’s role as a tool of regional economic integration. It examines the benefits of intra-bloc trade by comparing the region with other state socialist and developing states to demonstrate how membership in Comecon aided in facilitating rapid industrialization. Finally, it discusses the challenges Soviet and Central and East European leaders saw in expanding trade with the West.

Decommodification in action: Common property as countermovement

Organization ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 817-839 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Maria Peredo ◽  
Murdith McLean
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Common Property ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Market Model ◽  
Land Trusts ◽  
Worker Cooperatives ◽  
Fictitious Commodities ◽  
Market Capitalism

Our purpose is twofold: to contribute to the case for seeing the economy as a rich landscape of practices for producing and distributing livelihood extending beyond the capitalist market and to highlight an important element in the current dynamic of organizational change within that landscape. We focus on a particular set of practices that not only deserve attention as departures from the market model but also exemplify an important interplay in current economic life: the resistance mounted by some elements in economic activity to the hegemony of market capitalism. Our argument sheds light on a form of organizing that is based on a distinctive economic form – common property, and arises in a distinctive setting – the heightened marketization characteristic of neo-liberalism. The factor of commodification binds these two as the force that arouses the organizational reaction. We sketch the neo-liberal environment of current economic life and then outline Polanyi’s notion of ‘fictitious commodities’ in the market economy and the countermovement aimed at protecting and recovering them. We focus on two families of practice that effectively decommodify land and labour – community land trusts and worker cooperatives – and suggest that these represent a widespread interplay of forces in the countermovement. We conclude by outlining a fertile programme of research that flows from our argument.

scholarly journals The Unbearable Whiteness of the Polish Plumber and the Hungarian Peacock Dance around “Race”

Slavic Review ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
József Böröcz ◽  
Mahua Sarkar
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
East European ◽  
East Central European ◽  
State Socialist ◽  
The Eu

This contribution interprets the east-central European post-liberal governments’ recent anti-immigrant, anti-refugee and anti-human-rights hysteria in the context of the increasing dependence of the region's societies for livelihood on employment in the western EU, the widespread racialization of east European labor in the western EU, and the refusal of east European political elites and societies at large to consider possible “Left” critiques of the EU. Given those circumstances, and laboring under related anxieties, post-state-socialist political elites and societies have assumed a fundamentalist-racialist posture. They redirect their repressed anger toward incoming refugees, claim an ahistorical, essential kind of Whiteness and contribute to rigidifying European discussions of “race.”

From state socialism to capitalism: The role of class and the world system

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lane
Keyword(s):  
World System ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Modern World ◽  
State Socialism ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Transition To Capitalism ◽  
State Socialist

While theories of global capitalism have added a new dimension to our understanding of the dynamics of the modern world, a ‘globalisation’ approach to the transformation of the state socialist societies is relatively underdeveloped. This paper studies the role of international and global factors under state socialism and the world system in the pre-1989 period. The paper considers traditional Marxist approaches to the transition to capitalism and criticises the model of state capitalism as well as the world system approach. In contrast, social actors (the ‘acquisition’ and ‘administrative’ social strata and the global political elite)are identified as playing a major role in the fall of state socialism, and were a nascent capitalist class. The transformation of state socialism, it is contended, had the character of a revolution rather than a shift between different types of capitalism.

Challenging the State-socialist Order: a New Social Movement in Poland

2001 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 698-721 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Wylie
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
The West ◽  
East European ◽  
Peace Movements ◽  
New Social Movement ◽  
State Socialist ◽  
Rule Out

Though their environmental problems are even more severe and their arms expenditures at least as high as those in the West, the political systems of the East European countries rule out the emergence of independent and vigorous environmentalist movements or peace movements comparable to those in the West. It is relatively easy for the ruling elite to simply ignore such issues, officially the problems underlying them exist only in the capitalist West.

Emerging Varieties of Capitalism in Former State Socialist Societies

2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lane
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Varieties Of Capitalism ◽  
State Control ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Central European ◽  
Hybrid State ◽  
Market Capitalism ◽  
State Socialist

The transformation of the former state socialist societies involved the introduction of capitalism from above. The current ‘varieties of capitalism’ debate focuses on developed high income capitalist countries, whereas the former state socialist countries come from a low economic base and are in the process of capitalist formation. It is contended that, while levels of capital accumulation are very low, a modern capitalist system of the continental type characterises one group of central European societies. This group approaches the levels of OECD countries with respect to marketisation and has a positive participation in the global economy. A second, relatively poor and weakly coordinated, cluster has the characteristics of low income, primary sector exporting countries, with a very low integration into the global economy. This group is characterised as a hybrid state/market uncoordinated type of market capitalism. A third, relatively coherent, cluster has high levels of state control, relatively little privatisation and an undeveloped market.

scholarly journals Bumbling idiots or evil masterminds? Challenging cold war stereotypes about women, sexuality and state socialism

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 489-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen Ghodsee ◽  
Kateřina Lisková
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
East European ◽  
Communist State ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Common ◽  
Knowledge Claims ◽  
State Socialist

In academic writing, facts about the past generally require the citation of relevant sources unless the fact or idea is considered ?common knowledge:? bits of information or dates upon which there is a wide scholarly consensus. This brief article reflects on the use of ?common knowledge? claims in contemporary scholarship about women, families, and sexuality as experienced during 20th century, East European, state socialist regimes. We focus on several key stereotypes about the communist state and the situation of women that are often asserted in the scholarly literature, and argue that many of these ideas uncannily resemble American anti-communist propaganda. When contemporary scholars make claims about communist intrusions into the private sphere to effect social engineering or the inefficacy of state socialist mass organizations or communist efforts to break up the family or indoctrinate the young, they often do so without citation to previous sources or empirical evidence supporting their claims, thereby suggesting that such claims are ?common knowledge.? We believe that those wishing to assert such claims should link these assertions to concrete originating sources, lest it turn out the ?common knowledge? derives, in fact, from western Cold War rhetoric.

scholarly journals Transitions in the Colonial Hudson Valley: Capitalist, Bulk Goods, and Braudelian

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 214-246
Author(s):  
Jonathan Leitner
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Individual Identification ◽  
Farm Households ◽  
Basic Material ◽  
Market Exchange ◽  
Capitalist Economy ◽  
Hudson Valley ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Transition To Capitalism

A long debate about the American “transition to capitalism” was apparently settled via a rough consensus on the gradual prevalence of rural capitalism in the north; and that even small, subsistence-oriented farm households engaged in some market exchange, while market-oriented farm households engaged in some subsistence activities. Yet certain Marxist scholars argue that even prevalent market exchange did not necessarily signify a capitalist economy.  Similarly, certain world-systems scholars see the debates as somewhat pointless, inasmuch as capitalism is a systemic characteristic that exists regardless of any individual identification. These latter notions derive in part from Braudel’s tripartite structure of early modern economic life, which sees self-sufficiency and basic daily survival existing alongside market economies and everyday forms of exchange, with the capitalist world-economy in turn overarching, yet not necessarily affecting, the other two levels.  This paper posits that colonial America’s “transition” to capitalism was effectively the gradual, often contested, and geographically uneven addition of Braudel’s second layer of economic life – the market economy – onto the first layer of self-sufficiency and basic material life; with this process arguably driven by the third layer of the larger capitalist economy, as other recent studies of the colonial Hudson Valley have focused on, albeit while ignoring the region’s diverse and uneven economic geography  It explores the notion of geographically-uneven Braudelian economic structures and transitions within the late 17th and 18th century colonial Hudson Valley, a region of four rather distinct subregions demonstrating that even within relatively small geographical spaces, at least at certain times, one can find different means of Braudelian economic life, and by extension, varying articulations with the world-economy and possible paths to eventual core emergence.

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