The Changing Role of Marketing in the Eastern European Socialist Economies

1971 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 16-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Peter Lauter

The socialist nations of Eastern Europe are moving toward more market-oriented economies. Problems have arisen because of unfamiliarity with marketing concepts and the conflict of some concepts with established socialist ideology. This article examines problems of introducing marketing into a planned economy and concentrates on the experience of Hungary.

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (338) ◽  
pp. 61-66
Author(s):  
Sandris Ancans

AbstractThe economy of Latvia lags behind economically developed nations approximately fourfold in terms of labour productivity in the tradable sector, which is the key constituent of a modern economy, thereby affecting future sustainable development in the entire country, including the rural areas. The economic backwardness is characteristic of the entire Central and Eastern Europe. This is the heritage of a communist regime that lasted for about half a century and the economic system termed a (centrally) planned economy or a command economy. However, such a term for the communist-period economy is not correct, as it does not represent the purpose it was created for. Accordingly, the paper aims to assess the effect of the communism period on the economic backwardness of the Central and Eastern European region of the EU. A planned economy that existed in all communist countries, with the exception of Yugoslavia, was not introduced to contribute to prosperity. It was intended for confrontation or even warfare by the communist countries under the guidance of the USSR against other countries where no communism regime existed, mostly Western world nations with their market economies. For this reason, it is not correct to term it a (centrally) planned economy or a command economy; the right term is a mobilised (war) economy. An extrapolation of a geometric progression for GDP revealed that during the half a century, Latvia as part of the USSR was forced to spend on confrontation with the West not less than EUR 17 bln. (2011 prices) or approximately one gross domestic product of 2011. The research aim of the paper is to assess the effect of the communism period on the economic backwardness of the Central and Eastern European region of the EU.


1991 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lewis Glinert ◽  
Yosseph Shilhav

ABSTRACTThis study explores the correlation between notions of language and territory in the ideology of a present-day Ultraorthodox Jewish group, the Hasidim of Satmar, in the context of Jewish Ultraorthodoxy (Haredism) in general. This involves the present-day role of Yiddish vis-à-vis Hebrew, particularly in Israel. We first address the relative sanctity of a space that accommodates a closed Haredi lifestyle and of a language in which it is expressed, then contrast this with the absolute sanctity of the land of Israel and the language of Scripture both in their intensional (positive) and in their extensional (negative) dimensions, and finally examine the quasi-absolute sanctity with which the Yiddish language and Jewish habitat of Eastern Europe have been invested. Our conclusion is that three such cases of a parallel between linguistic and territorial ideology point to an intrinsic link. Indeed, the correlation of language and territory on the plane of quasi-absolute sanctity betokens an ongoing, active ideological tie, rather than a set of worn, petrified values evoking mere lip-service. These notions of quasi-sanctity find many echoes in reality: in the use of Yiddish and in the creation of a surrogate Eastern European lifestyle in the Haredi “ghettos.” (Cultural geography, sociolinguistics, Judaism, Hasidism, religion, Israel, sociology of language, Yiddish, sacred land, Hebrew, territory)


2014 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua S. Walden

ABSTRACTThis article explores the music of Yiddish theatre in early twentieth-century New York by considering multiple adaptations of Russian Jewish author Sholem Aleichem's 1888 novel Stempenyu, about a klezmer violinist, which was transformed into two theatrical productions in 1907 and 1929, and finally inspired a three-movement recital work for accompanied violin by Joseph Achron. The multiple versions of Stempenyu present the eponymous musician as an allegory for the ambivalent role of the shtetl – the predominantly Jewish small town of Eastern Europe – in defining diasporic Jewish life in Europe and America, and as a medium for the sonic representation of shtetl culture as it was reformulated in the memories of the first generations of Jewish immigrants. The variations in the evocations of Eastern European klezmer in these renderings of Stempenyu indicate complex changes in the ways Jewish immigrants and their children conceived of their connection to Eastern Europe over four decades. The paper concludes by viewing changes in the symbolic character type of the shtetl fiddler in its most famous and recent manifestation, in the stage and screen musical Fiddler on the Roof.


Author(s):  
Dora Vargha

Through the case of Czechoslovakia and Hungary, this chapter explores the role of Eastern European states in polio prevention and vaccine development in the Cold War. Based on published sources and archival research, the chapter demonstrates that polio facilitated cooperation between the antagonistic sides to prevent a disease that equally affected East and West. Moreover, it argues that Eastern Europe was seen – both by Eastern European states and the West - as different when it came to polio prevention, since the communist states were considered to be particularly well suited to test and successfully implement vaccines.


2006 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-537
Author(s):  
Gábor Hunya ◽  
Béla Galgóczi

This article examines foreign direct investment (FDI) in the European context and assesses the significance of relocation of production and workplaces from the west to the east. The first part of the article provides a statistical overview of FDI in central and eastern European countries (CEECs) for the last five years. Structural features of FDI flow and stock are presented and the trend of an increasing role for reinvested profits is examined. The second part focuses on the qualitative features of FDI and foreign trade. It provides evidence of the incidence of relocation, the growing role of intra-industrial trade, and the changing role of manufacturing in the economies of the EU-15 and the CEECs.


2019 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikola Naumov ◽  
Adi Weidenfeld

The 1989 fall of the Iron Curtain marked the beginning of new economic, socio-cultural and political realities for the former socialist states in Central and Eastern Europe. Along with the economic restructuring from statecentralised to market economy, democratisation and liberalisation initiated a transformation of the socialist urban space, which was characterised by the changing role of its iconic landmarks. This conceptual paper examines these post-1989 changes, which range between the removal of these landmarks and their transition into market led iconic and flagship attractions. The paper identifies the changing role of tourism from a topbottom orchestrated to a market led activity, which explains the transformation of some of these landmarks. It introduces a new framework for studying this process by suggesting that iconisation, de-iconisation and re-iconisation processes are interrelated to other strategies and approaches to the transition of the socialist urban landscape into a western market economy. The paper identifies avenues for further research and provides some recommendations for improving the management of similar processes.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942110578
Author(s):  
Leah Valtin-Erwin

Amidst widespread shortages in the 1980s, consumers in late communist-era Eastern Europe strategically carried shopping bags with them everywhere in case an opportunity to pick up scarce goods arose. After 1989, the routine use of reusable string shopping bags declined in favor of single-use plastic bags provided in supermarkets. Over time, however, string bags were widely reconstituted as a popular nostalgic commodity. This paralleled, in reverse, the trajectory of plastic bags, especially those bearing Western branding, which had been desired but scarce commodities in the 1980s before postcommunist reforms rendered them ubiquitous. In this article, I argue that the shopping bag’s function as both an instrument of consumption and a potential commodity in and of itself helps us better historicize how late communist shortage, the rupture of 1989, and the ensuing period of change transformed the perception and memory of the role of material objects in late twentieth-century Eastern Europe. To ascertain how their embedded meaning and social function has been constantly repurposed, I analyze representations of shopping bags in print and media culture from the 1980s and 1990s as well as nostalgic sources created more recently, alongside anecdotes and recollections in academic and commercial texts.


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