Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery

With the collapse of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in 1991, the Eastern European nations of the former socialist bloc had to figure out their newly capitalist future. Capitalism, they found, was not a single set of political-economic relations. Rather, they each had to decide what sort of capitalist nation to become. In Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery, Dorothee Bohle and Béla Geskovits trace the form that capitalism took in each country, the assets and liabilities left behind by socialism, the transformational strategies embraced by political and technocratic elites, and the influence of transnational actors and institutions. They also evaluate the impact of three regional shocks: the recession of the early 1990s, the rolling global financial crisis that started in July 1997, and the political shocks that attended EU enlargement in 2004. Bohle and Greskovits show that the postsocialist states have established three basic variants of capitalist political economy: neoliberal, embedded neoliberal, and neocorporatist. The Baltic states followed a neoliberal prescription: low controls on capital, open markets, reduced provisions for social welfare. The larger states of central and eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, and the Czech and Slovak republics) have used foreign investment to stimulate export industries but retained social welfare regimes and substantial government power to enforce industrial policy. Slovenia has proved to be an outlier, successfully mixing competitive industries and neocorporatist social inclusion. Bohle and Greskovits also describe the political contention over such arrangements in Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia. A highly original and theoretically sophisticated typology of capitalism in postsocialist Europe, this book is unique in the breadth and depth of its conceptually coherent and empirically rich comparative analysis.

Introduction: The Success, Fragility, and Diversity of Postsocialist Capitalism 1. Capitalist Diversity after Socialism Comparing East European Capitalisms Polanyian Varieties Postsocialist Regime Concepts Matrixes of Institutions and Performances Puzzles of the Small State Pattern 2. Paths to Postsocialist Capitalism Leaving the East Mobilizing Consent Returning to the West: Transnationalization and European Integration 3. Nation Builders and Neoliberals: The Baltic States Origins of the National and Nationalizing Projects Exclusionary and Inclusionary Democracies The Politics of Early Economic Reforms Nationalist Social Contracts Constructing the Estonian Success Story Internationalization, European Integration, and the Baltic Economic Miracle 4. Manufacturing Miracles and Welfare State Problems: The Visegrád Group Unsuccessful Experiments and Double-Edged Inheritances Welfarist Social Contracts Rival Manufacturing Miracles Contesting the Euro 5. Neocorporatism and Weak States: The Southeastern European Countries Labor's Won Battles and Lost Wars Postsocialist Capitalism in Strong and Weak States Neocorporatist Balancing versus Crisis-Driven Path Corrections 6. The Return of Hard Times Recession, Austerity, and No Alternatives: The Baltic States Semicore Specialization, Polarized Democracy, and Austerity: The Visegrád Model in Peril The Crisis, Neocorporatism, and Weak States: Southeastern Europe Responsible Government or the Specter of Ungovernability Conclusion: Postsocialist Capitalism Twenty Years On Legacies, Initial Choices, and Repressed Alternatives Market, Welfare, Democracy, and Identity: Compatibilities and Trade-offs Virtues and Vices of Deep International Integration Global Convergence versus Capitalist Diversity New Global Transformations Index