scholarly journals Gorbachev versus Deng: A Review of Chris Miller’s The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergei Guriev
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Industrial Enterprise ◽  
The Political ◽  
Weak State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Vested Interests ◽  
Enterprise Reforms

Chris Miller’s book is a historian’s account of Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts to save the Soviet economy. Miller focuses on the question of why Gorbachev did not follow Deng Xiaoping and did not manage to reform the economy. Miller argues that it was not for the lack of understanding (Gorbachev did invest in learning China’s approach to reform and did understand it well), nor for the lack of trying. In fact, Gorbachev did try to implement Deng’s agricultural and industrial enterprise reforms. However, Gorbachev’s reforms were blocked by powerful vested interests. An inability to tackle the agricultural and industrial lobbies eventually resulted in the bankruptcy and collapse of the Soviet Union. While I generally agree with the political economy argument, I discuss a number of alternative explanations. I also discuss sources of Gorbachev’s weak state capacity and offer an evaluation of Gorbachev’s and post-Gorbachev reform efforts and mistakes based on the political economy research carried out in the last twenty-five years. ( JEL D72, O57, P21, P23, P24, P26)

The Political Economy of Postsocialism

Slavic Review ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 756-793 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Bunce
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
The Political ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World

There were two good reasons to expect that developments after socialism, whether in the former Soviet Union or in east central Europe, would follow a roughly similar course. The first was the homogenizing effects of the socialist experience. In contrast to other regions of the world, such as Latin America and southern Europe, where dictatorships had also given way to more liberalized orders, the socialist regimes of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were remarkably alike in their form and functioning.

The Institutional Base of the Stockholm School: The Political Economy Club (1917–1951)

1989 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rolf G.H. Henriksson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Economic Education ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
List Type ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
Student Union ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Subject

On October 1, 1936 the Stockholm economists hosted a very distinguished guest, John Maynard Keynes. Homeward bound from a visit to the Soviet Union, Keynes appeared at the Political Economy Club. The minutes, as recorded by Ingvar Svennilson, relate:1.At the invitation of the club, Mr. J.M. Keynes lectured at the Institute of Social Science on the subject “My grounds for departure from orthodox economic traditions.” The lecture was arranged with support from J.H. Palme's fund for economic education and economic research. Some 100 persons attended the lecture.2.Following the lecture, the club arranged a dinner at the student union building. In addition to Mr. and Mrs. Keynes, the dinner was attended by: the chairman Professor Ohlin, Miss Kock, Messrs. Björ, Böök, Cederwall, Dahlgren, Hammarskjöld, Helger, Johansson, Lagercrantz (guest), Lundberg, Myrdal, Rothlieb, Rooth, Suoviranta (Finland, guest) and Wigforss, as well as the undersigned. After dinner there was a discussion that continued until midnight.

scholarly journals Who wants violence? The political economy of conflict and state building in Colombia

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (78) ◽  
pp. 671-700
Author(s):  
Leopoldo Fergusson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
State Building ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Weak States ◽  
Weak State ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Vested Interests ◽  
The Status

I propose three broad sets of political economy underpinnings for the persistence of conflict and the weak state. First, a “public goods trap” rooted in inequality implies that a low supply of, and demand for, public goods reinforce each other. Second, economic and political rents create vested interests in the status quo. Political rents are particularly problematic, partly because reformers face a curse of dimensionality: many things have to work well for state capacity and stable peace to consolidate. Finally, a very clientelistic pattern of political exchange consolidates a weak state, and weak states are fertile ground for clientelism.

scholarly journals Central Asia – the Political Economy of Events in 1995

1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-68
Author(s):  
Ahmed Rashid
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Break Up ◽  
Central Asian Republics

No greater disappointment for Pakistan’s foreign policy since the break up of the Soviet Union has been the inability to benefit from increased trade and traffic with five Central Asian Republics (CARs). The continuing civil war in Afghanistan has blocked land routes while neighbouring countries such as Iran and Turkey have surged ahead with strengthening economic links with Central Asia.

Jenö Varga, The Hungarian Soviet Republic and the Development of Psychoanalysis in the Soviet Union

2001 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christfried Tögel
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Soviet Republic ◽  
Totalitarian Regime ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Ambivalent Attitude ◽  
Soviet Russia

The paper explores – on the basis of archival sources, memoirs and interviews – the strange career of the economist Jenö Varga (1879–1964), an early Hungarian sympathizer of psychoanalysis. Varga became a member of the Hungarian Psychoanalytic Association in 1918 and, in 1919, was appointed People's Commissar for Finances during the Hungarian Councils' Republic, the first Communist regime in the country. After the failure of the Commune, he emigrated to Soviet Russia. In the 1920s, he worked at the Soviet commercial mission in Berlin, and maintained contact with Freud until the late 1920s. Later, he became one of the leading economists of the Soviet Union, an expert on the political economy of capitalism. Though he never publicly opposed Stalinism, an ambivalent attitude toward the totalitarian regime can be reconstructed from his memoirs as well as from interviews with family members and friends.

The Fast Track from the Soviet Union to the World Economy: External Liberalization in Estonia and Latvia

2001 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 537-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magnus Feldmann
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Fast Track ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
The Political ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Remarkable Progress

There Exists An Extensive Literature On The Political Economy of external liberalization in emerging markets. However, the remarkable progress of Estonia and Latvia in external liberalization has not yet been addressed systematically in the academic literature from a political economy angle. This article aims not only to make a contribution to fill this gap in the literature by focusing on trade policy reform, but also to address three other issues.

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