Besnik Pula

Globalization Under and After Socialism

The Evolution of Transnational Capital in Central and Eastern Europe

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

The post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe have gone from being among the world's most closed, autarkic economies to among the most export-oriented and globally integrated. Reaching deep into the region's history and focusing on its long-run industrial development, Besnik Pula presents a counter narrative to prevailing narratives that explain this shift.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 272
• Erscheinungstermin: 31. Juli 2018
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 236mm x 156mm x 25mm
• Gewicht: 561g
• ISBN-13: 9781503605138
• ISBN-10: 1503605132
• Artikelnr.: 48861989

Autorenporträt

Besnik Pula is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Program in International Studies at Virginia Tech.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
Introduction
chapter abstract
This is an introductory chapter to the book. It highlights the book's key
arguments and its organization.
1Globalization Under and After Socialism: A Comparative and Historical
Perspective
chapter abstract
The literature on globalization has often ignored Europe's periphery and
has particularly remained silent on how the structural changes in the world
economy beginning in the 1970s affected the ex-socialist world. In the late
twentieth century, among the few critical theories that broke from Cold War
understandings of socialist political economies was world-systems theory.
While making a number of counterintuitive and provocative claims,
world-systems theory and its offshoots (including the "dual dependency"
perspective) failed to account for the transformations from socialism to
postsocialism and took little heed of the institutional realities and
contradictions of Soviet socialism by relying on system-functionalist
explanations of change. This chapter proposes a framework for an
historical-institutionalist account of globalization that considers both
structural changes in the capitalist world economy and political and
economic reform in the socialist world that prefigured Central and Eastern
Europe's path of transformation after 1989.
2The Limits of Autarchy in the Periphery: Trade, Planning, and East
European Industrialization, 1946-1969
chapter abstract
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.
3Upgrading Socialism: Technology, Debt, and East European Reform, 1968-1985
chapter abstract
This chapter presents a structural account of East Europe's industrial
transformation during the era of reform socialism. "Reform socialism"
refers to institutional reforms socialist states began introducing
beginning around 1968, when economic problems like technological
backwardness, low productivity and poor product quality became apparent to
Communist leaderships across the region. While reforms were carried out
unevenly, they are significant in that they coincide with a number of
important developments in the world economy. The chapter argues that the
1970s was a crucially transformative decade for socialist economies, and
especially for states on the forefront of economic reform. What proved most
critical in determining the future industrial fate of socialist countries
was the decentralization of trade authority away from central ministries to
enterprises and Foreign Trade Organizations. The decentralization of trade
authority gave enterprises direct exposure to the competitive pressures-and
thus the dominant actors-of the world market.
4Socialist Proto-Globalization and Patterns of Uneven Transnational
Integration after 1989
chapter abstract
This chapter looks at the rise of foreign direct investment (FDI), both as
a new policy orientation, and as a process of capital flows with
institutionally transformative consequences in postsocialist economies.
While the previous chapters focused largely on political elites and
macro-institutional change during the late socialist era, this chapter
shifts attention to the impact of organizational processes at the firm
level during the immediate postsocialist period in driving the transition
towards globally integrated postsocialist industries. The chapter
systematically examines patterns of institutional change from joint
ventures to foreign direct investment across the region, and demonstrates
the capacities of economies with the most diffuse experience with socialist
proto-globalization in making the most rapid gains from globalization after
economic liberalization post-1989.
5Transnational Integration and Specialization in the 2000s: Diverging
International Market Roles
chapter abstract
This chapter completes the account of trajectories of globalization by
examining patterns of structural transformation and how these cumulatively
led individual Central and Eastern European economies towards new
international roles in world market integration during the 2000s. Over
time, legacy factors matter increasingly less while the politics of
adjustment came to matter much more. The chapter uses comparative data to
trace patterns of structural transformation leading states to adopt one of
the three distinct roles in international market integration: assembly
platform, intermediate producer, and combined. The chapter defines the
international market integration of small, developing states in a
globalized economy as the structural position the nation's industry assumes
within global production networks. The concept incorporates both the
aggregate role a nation's industry holds in global value chains and the
associated (national) political economy or institutional framework within
which the organization of industrial activity takes place.
6Critical Junctures and the Politics of Institutional Adjustment:
Explaining Divergence
chapter abstract
This chapter demonstrates how political factors determined the path of
postsocialist development and international market specialization in the
2000s. International market roles of individual economies built upon the
cumulative advantages in transnational production Central and Eastern
European economies gained during their socialist experience, but it was the
political challenge of turning cumulative advantage into a sustained
comparative institutional advantage that brought important gains in the
capital, technological and skill base of the economy that concerned the
politics of reform in the 1990s and 2000s. It was here that the interplay
between industrial restructuring and reform of other institutions of the
political economy came to matter. The chapter examines these policy
patterns to show the divergent specialization of Hungary and Slovakia into
an assembly platform, Czech Republic and Slovenia into an intermediate
producer, and Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania into combined roles.
Conclusion
chapter abstract
The book's concluding chapter reexamines patterns of postsocialist
development in light of historical opportunities and constraints and
patterns of domestic political forces. It recaps the book's key claim on
the importance of organizational capacities these economies built during
the reform period of the 1970s in opening the path for the region's
integration into the capitalist world economy after 1989. The chapter
summarizes comparative paths of transformation by highlighting temporal
sequences and intervening causal mechanisms during critical junctures in
determining institutional developments in the region.