Abstract

The 1989-91 upheavals in Eastern Europe sparked a turbulent process of social and economic transition. Two decades on, with the global economic crisis of 2008-10, a new phase has begun.

This book explores the scale and trajectory of the crisis through case studies of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia. The contributors focus upon the relationships between geopolitics, the world economy and class restructuring.

The book covers the changing relationship between business and states; foreign capital flows; financialisation and asset price bubbles; austerity and privatisation; and societal responses, in the form of reactionary populism and progressive social movements.

Challenging neoliberal interpretations that envisage the transition as a process of unfolding liberty, the dialectic charted in these pages reveals uneven development, attenuated freedoms and social polarisation.
'Central and Eastern Europe is a neoliberal horror story. The details are well told here: of 'grabitisation' kleptocracies, NATO expansion and capital flight. These well-packaged studies show how US sponsored 'reforms' deindustrialised Russia and other post-Soviet states'
Michael Hudson
'A very valuable contribution to a growing literature on the post-Communist transition'
Dr Carl Levy, Reader in European Politics, Goldsmiths, University of London
'Radical political economy finally comes resurgent in the former communist countries. Dale and his collaborators comprehensively cover the transitions, from Hungary to the Russian Pacific. The best alternative survey of how the post-communist entrants are faring in 21st-century capitalism'
Georgi Derluguian, author of Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-Systems Biography
'This book provides a vital corrective to neoliberal triumphalism, and a starting-point for socialist renewal'
Hugo Radice, University of Leeds