Syllabus
5 October - no class 12 October Introduction to the course,
Basic outline
Some specifics of Eastern Europe, interwar Central and Eastern Europe 19 October War legacies.
Is war really an economic disaster or it is some sort of opportunity? Why did the countries in the East ended in the communist bloc and the Western countries did not? Why the countries grew so quickly? Was planning unique only for Central and Eastern Europe?
Holly Case, Reconstruction in East-Central Europe: Clearing the Rubble of Cold War Politics, Past and Present, 2011, supplement. 26 October The autarkic model of an economy: What was the logic in it?
Why the Soviet Union pushed for a higher degree of industrialization in the Eastern countries. Were the regimes imposed by Soviets? Was there any economic rationale in the autarky? Did the external environment play some role for centrally planned economies?
Ludwig von Mises, Economic calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth, http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf 2 November Reforms in the socialist economies - squaring a circle?
The end of the extensive growth? The problem of quality of goods. Czechoslovak Prague Spring, Hungarian NEM etc. Was socialism reformable or von Mises was right?
Korbonski - The Politics of Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe: The Last Thirty Years. Soviet Studies, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Jan., 1989), pp. 1-19 9 November Real existing socialism
"goulash" socialism as a system
High socialism in its pure form. Turn towards more consumer-oriented economies instead of the previous investment oriented. Programs of imports of Western technologies to revive growth. Contacts with the West and intensified cooperation within the CMEA.
Crampton R. J. Eastern Europe in the twentieth century and after pp. 345-376 16 November Cooperation inside the Bloc
CMEA as a framework for cooperation or an arena of clashes? Did the Soviet Union subsidize Central Europeans? Why Soviets did that then?
Michael Marresse, CMEA: Effective but cumbersome political economy 23 November The crisis of the system and the fall of communism in Europe.
Final stage of the system. What happened to the planned economies of Eastern Europe? Did perestroika cause the fall? How the countries pursued their own perestroikas,
Laszlo Csaba, CMEA and the challenge of the 1980s 30 November Transformations in CEE
Complete changes of the functioning of the political-economic systems. Why some countries adopted hasty transformations while the others followed a gradual path? Was the transformational recession really so deep?
Kornai, The Great transformation of central Europe, Success, and disappointment, Economics of Transition, Volume 14, 2006, 207-244 7 December no class 14 Privatizations and the problem of the growth of negative tendencies (crime etc.)
Anders Aslund. Building Capitalism (chapter on privatization) 21 December The financial crisis and Central Europe
Why the countries performed so differently? 4 January Illiberal capitalism? Recent turn from liberal approaches in central Europe (not only)
Presentations: 12 October 19 October
War legacies. 26 October
The autarkic model of economy: What was the logic in it? – 26 October
First protests 2 November
Reforms in the socialist economies - squaring a circle? 2 November socialist consumerism 16 November new cultural currents 16 November
CMEA
Contacts with the West 23 November
Soviet perestroika 23 November
Collapse of the bloc 30 November ideological debate 30 November practical experience with transformation 14 December privatizations
Growth of negative tendencies 21
Financial crisis in central Europe
Annotation
The course covers the time range of 1945-2010 (or, more precisely, from the end of the WWII to the World Financial Crisis). Its main aim is to explore political economy of the area, divergencies and convergencies in the countries' developments.
It should not be a history of the region. Territorially, it deals with the East Central European countries excluding former Yugoslavia (the country will be covered only to the extent of its interaction with other socialist countries.
The course applies general concepts to the reality of the Central and Eastern Europe. Thematically, the course is divided into two parts, with the relations and conditions within the socialist bloc being tehe first part and the post-socialist reality as the second. The course should give to the students the ability to apporach the affairs in the Central Europe in their complexity, critically evaluate the differences and common points of the countries within the region.