Jan Drahokoupil

Lies, damned lies, and the EBRD's transition indicators

2011-05-20T10:19:00.004+01:00

EBRD is celebrating its 20th birthday at its 2011 Annual Meeting in Astana. We join the crowds of well-wishers with a comment in Bankwatch Mail 48. Happy birthday, EBRD!

Bankwatch Mail 48 can be downloaded also as a PDF.

'Swans Reflecting Elephants' and other reviews of Transition Economies

2011-02-12T22:29:00.002+01:00

First reviews of Transition economies, including the one by Heiko Fritz that could be entitled 'Swans Reflecting Elephants', can be found here.

International Integration, Varieties of Capitalism, and Resilience to Crisis in Transition Economies

2011-01-21T11:40:00.008+01:00

I was working, together with Martin Myant, for a longer period of time on a paper that analyses the impact of the economic crisis from 2008 across all transition economies. The paper, forthcoming in Europe-Asia Studies, can be downloaded here:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1744726.

Update: The paper has been finally published. Europe-Asia Studies has highlighted it as 'Topical for 2012' and it will be available free in 2012 via the journal's website.

'Essential reading'

2010-11-19T05:44:00.003+01:00

The Economist discusses Transition economies in a post Essential reading: The economists' verdict on its Eastern Approaches.

Kriteko

2010-11-08T10:16:00.003+01:00

The blog Kriteko Kritická ekonómia has been just launched. It will comment on topical political and economic issues in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (in Czech and Slovak). I am glad to be among its contributors. Other authors constitute an interesting bunch of distinguished economists and academics. Internet daily Referendum will be its partner in the Czech Republic. They run an article about the blog. They have also published a commentary by the editor of Kriteko.

Out now

2010-10-08T11:40:00.000+01:00

Transition economies: Political economy in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia

Martin Myant & Jan Drahokoupil

Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

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Transition Economies provides students with an up-to-date and highly comprehensive analysis of the economic transformation in former communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe and countries of the former Soviet Union. With coverage extending from the end of central planning to the capitalist varieties of the present, this text provides a comparative analysis of economic transformation and political-economic diversity that has emerged as a direct result. It covers differences between countries in terms of economic performance and integration into the world economy. Transition Economies seeks to explain and deepen understanding of these differences, chart the emerging forms of capitalism there, and provide country responses to the world financial crisis of 2008-2009.

Hallmark Feature

Presents a thorough analysis of the economic and political transformations in former communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe and countries of the former Soviet Union.
Provides a comparative analysis of economic transformation and emerging political-economic diversity.
Identifies and explains differences between groupings of countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and on the various forms of capitalism emerging in these countries.
Explicates these economies’ responses to the world financial crisis of 2008-2009.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: The political economy of state socialism

Chapter 1: The system of state socialism

Chapter 2: The successes and failures of central planning

Chapter 3: From reform to breakdown

Part II: Macro-economic transformations: From shock to recovery

Chapter 4: The courses of transition

Part III: Transition: Policies and alternatives

Chapter 5: A strategy for transition

Chapter 6: Alternatives and adaptations

Part IV: The state

Chapter 7: State capacity and the rule of law

Chapter 8: State consolidation: Russia in a comparative perspective

Chapter 9: Economic role of the state

Chapter 10: Welfare states and regimes

Part V: Micro-economic evolution: New forms of business

Chapter 11: Enterprises: Shock and survival

Chapter 12: The growth of new business

Chapter 13: Privatization

Chapter 14: A new banking system

Chapter 15: Enterprises in the period of economic recovery

Part VI: Conclusions

Chapter 16: Emerging Varieties of Capitalism

Chapter 17: The Financial Crisis and a Verdict on Transition

Data appendix

References

Praise for Transition Economies

“The book’s strongest feature lies in its political economy approach to transformation in the countries of Central East Europe and the former USSR… Given the highly up-to-date information and statistics that this book provides, I find it to be an equally useful resource for researchers, graduate students and libraries.”

—Anca M. Voicu, Rollins College

“The authors have managed to include the entire, very diverse region of Eastern Europe and the CIS in their analysis. They have done it by using pre-defined categories, but also coming up with their own way of classifying and ranking these countries… The timeliness of their analysis, attempting to classify the transition economies also in terms of how they are coping with the [2008-09 financial] crisis, gives the book extra value.”

—Carolyn Ann Kadas, University of Bologna

“The text… combines theory-led reasoning with empirical data in an excellent way. The authors highlight the limits of the Varieties of Capitalism approach in explaining the development trajectories in Eastern Europe and the CIS countries and provide convincing alternative explanations. Their critique of the Washington Consensus policies is well argued and supported by empirical data.”

—Joachim Becker, University of Vienna

“The clarity and good organization of the chapters, as well as the simplicity and clearness of the language and analysis make this book attractive both to the lecturer and his/her audience…. I was most impressed with the coverage of topics; this is exactly the set of material that I teach and that would most definitely be unique and a great contribution... I think this would be an excellent text for my class.”

—Mitchell Orenstein, Johns Hopkins University

“Instead of focusing on the 1990s where most of transition took place intensively, the authors take a much longer horizon by linking the transition experience in the 1990s with the most recent developments such as the world financial crisis of 2008. In doing so, the authors provide a highly updated text on economic transition.”

—Julan Du, City University of Hong Kong

A report on Czech Society

2010-06-28T14:29:00.002+01:00

A leading Czech sociologist, Jiří Večerník, published a comprehensive report on socio-economic developments in the Czech Republic in the 2000s. What are the lessons on Czech society and how it changed in the last two decades? I look at its interesting and also controversial claims in this article.

Now in paperback

2010-03-12T17:23:00.005+01:00

Globalization and the state in Central and Eastern Europe is now available in paperback. List Price: £22.50.

Reviews

2009-06-08T12:01:00.012+01:00

Transition economies, including the 'Swans Reflecting Elephants' review

Globalization and the State in Central and Eastern Europe

From Lisbon to Lisbon

2008-05-17T12:34:00.010+01:00

Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, Jan Drahokoupil & Laura Horn (eds.), Contradictions and Limits of Neoliberal European Governance: From Lisbon to Lisbon (Palgrave Macmillan).

'This is an outstanding collection which captures like no other current work the deeper causes of the continuing quagmire of European integration. '
- Kees van der Pijl, University of Sussex, UK

'Anyone with an interest in the state of affairs of European politics at the intersection of International Political Economy and Comparative Political Economy should not miss this important contribution.'
- Martin Höpner, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Germany

Read a sample chapter. See more details and order form at publisher's website.

Globalization and the state in Central and Eastern Europe: The politics of foreign direct investment

2008-01-11T12:09:00.014+01:00

Routledge, August 2008

Now in paperback: £22.50.

This book examines the transformation of the state in Central and Eastern Europe since the end of communism and adoption of market oriented reform in the early 1990s, exploring the impact of globalization and economic liberalization on the region’s states, societies and political economy. It compares the different policies and national strategies adopted by key Central and Eastern European states, including the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, showing how initial internally oriented strategies of market reform, privileging domestic sources of investment, had by the late 1990s given way to externally oriented strategies emphasising the promotion of competitiveness by attracting foreign investment. It explores the reasons behind this convergence, considering the influence of internal and external forces, and the roles of interests, institutions and ideas. It argues that internationalization of the state is forged in the processes through which domestic groups linked to transnational capital attain domestic influence necessary to shape state policy and strategy. These groups — the comprador service sector in particular — constitute and organize political, social and institutional support of the competition state in the region. Overall, this book not only provides a detailed account of the political economy of post-communist transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, but also the processes by which states adapt to the forces of globalization.

Reviews

This book develops a very coherent and rich analysis of the much-discussed process of transition from state socialism to market economies in Central and Eastern Europe. The author more than meets the challenge of finding something new to say about this topic, developing a novel approach based on a sophisticated account of structure, agency, and discourse; providing a new periodization of the steps in the transition in different societies; showing the interaction of economic and political forces in changing institutional and conjunctural contexts; identifying the key actors and forces that shape the transition and their crucial mediating role between foreign capital and states and domestic economic and political interests; and providing some insightful comments on varieties of transition. I recommend this book most warmly.

Bob Jessop, Founding Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Lancaster University

The real innovation of Drahokoupil's approach lies in going beyond the opposition of national versus transnational explanations. His focus on the comprador sector as the site linking the two perspectives is very effective and helps to set an agenda for future studies, including on other world regions.

Don Kalb, Professor, Central European University, Budapest & Utrecht University

Drahokoupil's book constitutes an advance in the understanding of the internationalization of states, societies and political economies. The book is well written and it provides provocative ideas on the forces of convergence in the international political economy and on the evolution of the competition state based on the insightful analysis of the Central and Eastern European countries.

Laszlo Bruszt, Professor, European University Institute, Florence

Students of Eastern Europe’s transformation and transnational integration will read this book with great interest. The book offers rich empirical data and a convincing and sophisticated argument on how the interaction among state reformers, domestic interest groups and transnational corporations shaped the emergence of the region’s new transnational capitalism.

Béla Greskovits, Professor, Central European University, Budapest

'This is an outstanding book. It is clearly written, has excellent documentation and bibliography and the argument is clearly put, well developed and organised. It is theoretically based and empirically substantiated and will contribute greatly to our understanding of the transformation process.' - Europe-Asia Studies, David Lane, University of Cambridge

Contents

Introduction
1 Understanding convergence towards the competition state: The transnational constitution of domestic politics
2 The rise of the competition state: Towards the Porterian workfare postnational regime
3 Creating national capitalism against the odds: The internally oriented project in the Czech Republic
4 The internally oriented pathways in the early nineties: By default or by design?
5 The time of the comprador service sector: How Czechs ignited competition for FDI
6 Political support of the competition state: The comprador service sector and its allies
7 The investment promotion machines: Everyday politics and the multi-scalar constitution of the competition state
Conclusion

Conference discount flyer

2007-01-08T10:09:00.028+01:00

See my research at SSRN Author Page

BOOKS (PEER REVIEWED)

(2010, co-authored with Martin Myant) Transition economies: Political economy in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, ISBN 978-0-470-59619-7 (416 p.) [Reviews available at http://bit.ly/tranec.]

Czech translation of the revised version of Transition economies forthcoming in Academia, Prague, 2012 (Tranzitivní ekonomiky Politická ekonomie Ruska, východní Evropy a střední Asie).

(2008) Globalization and the state in Central and Eastern Europe: The politics of foreign direct investment. London: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-59027-3 (paperback) 978-0-415-46603-5 (hardback) 978-0-203-89208-4 (electronic) (255 p.). [Reviews available at http://bit.ly/globcee.]

(2008, co-edited with Bastiaan van Apeldoorn & Laura Horn) Contradictions and limits of neoliberal European governance: From Lisbon to Lisbon. Basingstoke: Palgrave, ISBN 978-0230537095 (322 p.).

JOURNAL ARTICLES (PEER REVIEWED)

(2012, with Martin Myant) Transition indicators of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development: A doubtful guide to economic success. Competition and Change, forthcoming.

(2012, with Martin Myant) International integration, varieties of capitalism, and resilience to crisis in transition economies. Europe-Asia Studies, 64(1), 1-33 (ISSN 0966-8136) [Lead article, highlighted as ‘Topical for 2012’ with free access].

(2012) Beyond lock-in versus evolution, towards punctuated co-evolution: On Ron Martin's ‘Rethinking regional path dependence’ International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(1), 166-171 (ISSN 0309-1317).

(2011, with Paweł Capik) Foreign direct investments in business services: Transforming the Visegrád Four region into a knowledge-based economy? European Planning Studies, 19(9), 1611-1631 (ISSN 0965-4313).

(2010, with Martin Myant) Varieties of Capitalism, Varieties of Vulnerabilities: Financial Crisis and its Impact on Welfare States in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Historical Social Research-Historische Sozialforschung, 35(2), 266-295 (ISSN 0172-6404).

(2009) After transition: Varieties of political-economic development in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Comparative European Politics, 7(2), 279-298 (ISSN 1472-4790).

(2009) Internationalisation of the State in the Czech Republic: Igniting the Competition for Foreign Investment in the Visegrád Four Region. Czech Sociological Review, 45(3), 549–570 (ISSN 0038-0288).

(2008, with Martin Myant) International Integration and the Structure of Exports in Central Asian Republics. Eurasian Geography and Economics, 49(5), 604-622 (ISSN 1538-7216).

(2008) The investment promotion machines. Europe-Asia Studies, 60(2), 197-225 (ISSN 0966-8136).

(2008) Who won the contest for a new property class? Structural transformation of elites in the Visegrád Four region. Journal for East European Management Studies, 13(4), 361-377, special issue on elites in Eastern Europe (ISSN 0949-6181).

(2008) The rise of the comprador service sector: The politics of state transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. Polish Sociological Review, 162(2), 175-189 (ISSN 1231-1413).

(2007) Analyzing the capitalist state in post-socialism. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 31(2), 401-424 (ISSN 0309-1317).

(2004) Re-inventing Karl Polanyi: On the contradicting interpretations of social protectionism. Czech Sociological Review, 40(6), 835-849 (ISSN: 0038-0288).

(2004) Post-Fordist capitalism in the Czech Republic: The investment of Flextronics in Brno. Czech Sociological Review, 40(3), 343-362 (ISSN: 0038-0288).

CONTRIBUTIONS TO EDITED VOLUMES (PEER REVIEWED MARKED WITH ASTERISK)

(2012, with Martin Myant) Economic methods. In R. Kollmorgen, W. Merkel & H.-J. Wagener (Eds.), The handbook of transformation research. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, forthcoming.

*(2012, with Martin Myant) Central Asian Republics: Forms of International Integration and the Impact of the Crisis of 2008. In J. Ahrens & H. W. Hoen (Eds.), Institutional reform in Central Asia: Politico-economic challenges. London: Routledge, forthcoming (ISBN 978-0-415-60200-6).

*(2012, with Martin Myant) The European sub-prime? Financial crisis and the East-European periphery. In P. Nousios, H. Overbeek, A. Tsolakis (Eds.) Globalisation and European integration: Critical approaches to regional order and international relations (pp. 130-153). London: Routledge (ISBN 978-0-415-61184-8).

*(2011, with Martin Myant) The politics of welfare restructuring in transition countries and the crisis of 2008. In I. E. Vural (Ed.) Converging Europe: Transformation of social policy in the enlarged European Union and in Turkey (pp. 149-179). Adershot: Ashgate (978-1-4094-0709-6).

*(2009). The politics of the competition state: The agents and mechanisms of state transnationalization in Central and Eastern Europe. In L. Bruszt & R. Holzhacker (Eds.), The transnationalization of economies, states, and civil societies: New challenges for governance in Europe (pp. 135-155). New York: Springer. (ISBN 978-0-387-89338-9).

*(2008, with Bastiaan van Apeldoorn & Laura Horn) Introduction: Towards a critical political economy of European governance. In Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, Jan Drahokoupil & Laura Horn (eds.) Contradictions and limits of neoliberal European governance: From Lisbon to Lisbon (pp. 1-17). Basingstoke: Palgrave (ISBN 978-0230537095).

*(2008) The rise of the competition state in the Visegrád Four: Internationalization of the state as a local project. In Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, Jan Drahokoupil & Laura Horn (eds.) Contradictions and limits of neoliberal European governance: From Lisbon to Lisbon (pp. 187-207). Basingstoke: Palgrave (ISBN 978-0230537095).

(2007) Business cycle; Foreign direct investment; Human capital mobility; International division of labor; Investment incentive; Political business cycle; Production chain; Production network; Research and development. In Mark Bevir (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Governance (pp. 63-64, 317-318, 421-422, 474-475, 498, 706-708, 750-751, 751-752, 834-835). Thousand Oaks: Sage (ISBN 9781412905794).

(2007) From national capitalisms to foreign-led growth. In Joachim Becker und Rudy Weissenbacher (eds.) Dollarization, Euroization and financial instability: Central and Eastern European countries between stagnation and financial crisis? (pp. 87-108). Marburg: Metropolis Verlag (ISBN 978-3-89518-630-1).

*(2007) On the state of the state: The Czech transformation and the moment of convergence in the Visegrad region. In John Pickles (Ed.), State and society in post-socialist economies (pp. 69-91). Basingstoke: Palgrave (ISBN 978-0230522145).

*(2007) The state of the capitalist state in East-Central Europe: Towards the Porterian workfare post-national regime? In Bruno S. Sergi, William T. Bagatelas & Jana Kubicová (Eds.), Industries and markets in Central and Eastern Europe (pp. 175-196). Aldershot, UK: Ashgate (ISBN 978-0754649182).

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

(2011, with Miroslav Beblavý, Juraj Draxler, and Martin Myant) Labour relations in Central and Eastern Europe FP7 NEUJOBS State of the art report, 3 (D6.1).

(2011, with Martin Myant) Lies, damned lies, and the EBRD's transition indicators. Bankwatch Mail, 48, 6-8.

(2009) Пост-переходные варианты политического и экономического развития стран Восточной Европы и бывшего Советского Союза. Мир России, 18(3), 39-60 (ISSN 1811-038X).

(2007) Political support of the competition state in the Visegrád Four GARNET Working Paper, 22/07.

(2007) ‘Is CzechInvest facing extinction?’ Czech Business Weekly, 7 May 2007 (ISSN 1214-8415).

(2007) Note on TransEuropean Careers. UACES News 51, solicited by the editor

(2005) From collectivization to globalization: Putting populism in its place. Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs, Spring 2005, 65-74.

(2005) „O vlivu globalizace na migraci“: Několik poznámek o pastech sociální imaginace [“The influence of globalization on migration”: Some remarks on the traps of social imagination.] Migrace online.

(2003) Manoeuvring the global economy: Contemporary transformations of capitalism and their political and social consequences. In B. Voicu and H. Rusu (Eds.) Globalization, European integration, and social development in European postcommunist societies. Sibiu: Psihomedia Publishing House.

(2002, co-authored). Zpráva z výzkumu [Research report]. In Rovné příležitosti žen a mužů. [Equal opportunities of women and men]. Brno: Gender Centre, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University.

(2001, co-authored). Rovné příležitosti v českých a moravských podnicích. Souhrn doporučení zaměstnavatelům a zaměstnancům. [Equal Opportunities of Women and Men in Selected Czech Companies 2000 - 2001]. Brno: Gender Centre, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University.

BOOK REVIEWS

(2012) Reill, Peter Hanns, & Szelényi, Balázs A. (Eds.). (2011). Cores, peripheries, and globalization: Essays in honor of Ivan T. Berend. Budapest: Central European University Press. In Czech Sociological Review, forthcoming (ISSN 0038-0288).

(2010) Jiří Večerník, Czech society in the 2000s: A report on socio-economic policies and structures. Prague: Academia, 2009. In Europe-Asia Studies, 62(9), 1583-1586 (ISSN 0966-8136).

(2008) Nina Bandelj, From Communists to Foreign Capitalists: The Social Foundations of Foreign Direct Investment in Postsocialist Europe, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. In Czech Sociological Review, 44(6), 1224-1228 (ISSN 0038-0288).

(2008) Bob Hancké, Martin Rhodes, and Mark Thatcher (Eds.), Beyond Varieties of Capitalism: Conflict, Contradictions, and Complementarities in the European Economy. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. In Czech Sociological Review, 44(3), 602-604 (ISSN 0038-0288).

(2008) Daniel Gerbery, Ivan Lesay, Daniel Škobla (eds.): Kniha o chudobe: Společenské súvislosti a verejné politiky [A Book on poverty] Bratislava: Priatelia Země CEPA, 2007. In Sociológia 40(5), 490-492 (ISSN 0049-1225). [Republished in English in Slovak Sociological Review, 40(6), 566-568 (ISSN 1336-8613).]

(2008) Grabbe, H., The EU's transformative power: Europeanization through conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (2006). In Journal of Intervention and State-Building 2(3), pp. 402-404 (ISSN 1750-2985).

(2007) Hauser, M. (Ed.). O sociálním státě a kapitalismu [Welfare state and capitalism]. Praha: Svoboda Servis a Socialistický kruh (2007). In Literární noviny, 37, p. 7 (ISSN 1210-0021).

(2006) Smart, A. & J. Smart (Eds.) Petty capitalists and globalization: Flexibility, entrepreneurship, and economic development. State University of New York Press Albany, NY (2005). In Regional Studies, 40(1), pp. 138-139 (ISSN 0034-3404).

(2004) Humphrey, C.. The unmaking of Soviet life: Everyday economies after socialism Caroline Humphrey. Ithaca: Cornell University Press (2002). In Czech Sociological Review, 40(3), pp. 388-390 (ISSN 0038-0288).