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http://hdl.handle.net/1814/13346
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| Title: | East European Transformations and the Paradoxes of Transnationalization |
| Authors: | BOHLE, Dorothee |
| Keywords: | East-Central Europe
welfare state
identity politics
transnationalization
financial crisis |
| Issue Date: | 2010 |
| Series/Report no.: | EUI SPS
2010/01 |
| Abstract: | With the outbreak of the global financial crisis, the vulnerability of democratic capitalism in East-
Central Europe has come once again to the fore. Almost all new EU member states have accumulated
major economic imbalances, and have been experiencing steep recessions. The crisis in the region is
not only economic. Surging protests and the increasing appeal of political illiberalism attest to the end
of the “political economy of patience” (Claus Offe) which characterized the first decade of postsocialism.
The paper seeks to understand what has made the region’s democratic capitalist project so
vulnerable. It takes its cue from an early body of literature which has pointed to the problems involved
in simultaneously introducing capitalism and democracy. Contrary to the “breakdown thesis” which
was a part and parcel of this literature, the paper argues that repeatedly, temporary solutions to the
dilemma of simultaneity were found. Based on the Hungarian and Latvian examples, the paper shows
how at first domestic resources – generous welfare policies in Hungary and appeals to sentiments of
national solidarity in Latvia - allowed to reconcile democracy with market reforms. From the second
half of the 1990s onwards, EU-accession and deeper transnational integration helped to secure the
democratic capitalist project. By the late 2000s the full exposure to the risks of an increasingly instable
global order has however become a major source of trouble for the two countries. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/1814/13346 |
| ISSN: | 1725-6755 |
| Appears in Collections: | SPS Working Papers
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