Chepurenko A., Szanyi M. Parallel processes and divergent outcomes: the transformation of former socialist countries. In: The Routledge Handbook of Comparative Economic Systems. Ed. by B. Dallago, S. Casagrande. London, New York: Routledge. 2023. P. 411-432.

Abstract

The chapter deals with the systemic change in the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) during the last three decades, namely, in the Eastern and Central Europe (ECE), Balkans and three former Slavic USSR republics (Belorussia, Russia and Ukraine). The chapter argues that over the 30 years, these countries moved over the periods of adaptation (importing or imitating institutions from the established market economies), evaluating of the experience of systemic change after the EU accession of some of them and the 2008 crisis, and the contemporary manifesting of different socio-economic models (“dependent capitalisms” in ECE and Balkans vs. “administrative regime” in Russia, “dictatorship using market economy” in Belorussia and attempting to restart the market reforms in Ukraine). The explanations of the growing divergence of socio-economic trajectories in these countries are not only the historical heritage, as it is usually argued in the literature, but also a different level of economic development and peculiarities of Socialist planned economy in each respective country at the beginning of the transition, size of the internal market, closeness to the core EU and the different impact of FDI on the systemic changes, as well as the composition of the new elites. These sets of reasons led to different kinds of institutional traps during the systemic change, which blocked or distorted the expected common “systemic transition toward the liberal capitalism”. Such a development did not happen, and the variety of socio-economic trends in the CEE would remain a challenging problem of Comparative Economics in Europe in coming decades.

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