Property in East Central Europe


Book Description

Property is a complex phenomenon comprising cultural, social, and legal rules. During the twentieth century, property rights in land suffered massive interference in Central and Eastern Europe. The promise of universal and formally equal rights of land ownership, ensuring predictability of social processes and individual autonomy, was largely not fulfilled. The national appropriation of property in the interwar period and the communist era represent an onerous legacy for the postcommunist (re)construction of a liberal-individualist property regime. However, as the scholars in this collection show, after the demise of communism in Eastern Europe property is again a major factor in shaping individual identity and in providing the political order and culture with a foundational institution. This volume analyzes both historical and contemporary forms of land ownership in Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia in a multidisciplinary framework including economic history, legal and political studies, and social anthropology.




East Central Europe


Book Description

What is East Central Europe? Can it be defined with any precision? The question of definition is a difficult one as is ussually the case concerning borderlands whose historical developments show little continuity and an uncertain identity born of the conflict between aspirations and reality. It is in East Central Europe that „no peace settlement is ever final, no frontiers are secure and each generation must begin its work anew”. Is there any chance that this definition will become out of date?




Postsocialist Pathways


Book Description

This book, first published in 1998, analyzes democratization and economic change in the postsocialist societies of East Central Europe.




The Privatization Process in East-Central Europe


Book Description

It is beyond any doubt that East-Central European countries such as Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia has dramatically changed its shape through its radical transition from centrally planned to the market economies in last 7 years. Many economists divide the process of economic transformation into areas of Stabilization, Liberalization, and Privatization/Restructuring. The traditional view is that stabilization and liberalization can be achieved rather quickly-by balancing budgets, balance of payments, tightening money supply, freeing prices and liberalizing trade-but that the area of privatization is one that could be moved to the future and will require much more time. Until 1991, none of the post-communist nations except former East Germany (which had a large decree of support from West Germany) had succeeded in privatizing large numbers of enterprises, even though more than two years had passed since the changes in government in these nations. The privatization has been, however, seen as an extremely important part of reform package together with stabilization and liberalization especially in the Czech Republic from the very beginning. The Czechs originally as a part of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic embarked on an unprecedented path that should have lead not only to stabilization and liberalization, but also to very rapid, mass privatization of its sector of large enterprises that have dominated its economy to an extreme extent.




East Central Europe


Book Description




East Central Europe and the former Soviet Union


Book Description

A comprehensive introduction to the important economic, social and political processes and development issues in this increasingly popular area of study. Employing a groundbreaking thematic approach the book centres its discussion on the interrelation between contemporary development theories and continuing transition issues in this huge and complex region.




Fragmentation in East Central Europe


Book Description

The First World War led to a radical reshaping of Europe's political borders. Nowhere was this transformation more profound than in East Central Europe, where the collapse of imperial rule led to the emergence of a series of new states. New borders intersected centuries-old networks of commercial, cultural, and social exchange. The new states had to face the challenges posed by territorial fragmentation and at the same time establish durable state structures within an international order that viewed them as, at best, weak, and at worst, as merely provisional entities that would sooner or later be reintegrated into their larger neighbours' territory. Fragmentation in East Central Europe challenges the traditional view that the emergence of these states was the product of a radical rupture that naturally led from defunct empires to nation states. Using the example of Poland and the Baltic States, it retraces the roots of the interwar states of East Central Europe, of their policies, economic developments, and of their conflicts back to the First World War. At the same time, it shows that these states learned to harness the dynamics caused by territorial fragmentation, thus forever changing our understanding of what modern states can do.




East-Central European Economies in Transition


Book Description

This volume makes JEC-commissioned expert studies of economic developments in East-Central Europe available to business people, educators and students. Coverage includes economic, political and social reform issues, regional relations, and the impact of Western assistance programmes.




The Routledge History of East Central Europe since 1700


Book Description

Covering territory from Russia in the east to Germany and Austria in the west, The Routledge History of East Central Europe since 1700 explores the origins and evolution of modernity in this turbulent region. This book applies fresh critical approaches to major historical controversies and debates, expanding the study of a region that has experienced persistent and profound change and yet has long been dominated by narrowly nationalist interpretations. Written by an international team of contributors that reflects the increasing globalization and pluralism of East Central European studies, chapters discuss key themes such as economic development, the relationship between religion and ethnicity, the intersection between culture and imperial, national, wartime, and revolutionary political agendas, migration, women’s and gender history, ideologies and political movements, the legacy of communism, and the ways in which various states in East Central Europe deployed and were formed by the politics of memory and commemoration. This book uses new methodologies in order to fundamentally reshape perspectives on the development of East Central Europe over the past three centuries. Transnational and comparative in approach, this volume presents the latest research on the social, cultural, political and economic history of modern East Central Europe, providing an analytical and comprehensive overview for all students of this region.