On postsocialist capitalism

Abstract

Unlike recent tendencies to specify the variety of postsocialist trajectories, this article attempts to characterize the common features of postsocialist capitalism, as it has developed since the 1990s in Eastern Europe. Using conceptual tools of economic sociology, the postsocialist socio-economic organization is analyzed as embedded economy, the institutionalization of capitalism as a moral project, and the pervasiveness of informality from the networks and culture perspectives. Economic development is viewed as dependent, simultaneously, on the system's structural, political and cultural features. For postsocialist capitalism, these features include lack of state autonomy due to close coupling of political and economic roles; the embrace of greed and self-interest as legitimate motives for action; and persistence and bolstering of informality as modus operandi. Stipulations about developmental consequences are provided in the conclusion.Keywords Political and economic transformation . Eastern Europe . Embedded economy . Moralized markets . Informality as modus operandi . Development Scholarship on the socio-economic changes after the communist transitions in Eastern Europe has focused on the intra-regional differences in development, inspired by the literature on the varieties of capitalism (Hall and Soskice 2001) to specify varieties of postsocialist capitalism (King and Szelenyi 2005;Feldmann 2007;Noelke and Vliegenthart 2009;Bohle and Greskovits 2012;Bruszt 2012). In contrast, the present article proposes to bracket the obvious cross-country differences and to challenge the received wisdom, asking if, possibly, we can identify some common institutional features for countries, which underwent relatively rapid simultaneous political and economic transformations from socialism to capitalism. 1 The article does so by applying conceptual Theor Soc DOI 10.1007/s11186-016-9265-z 1 The emphasis is on rapid simultaneous political and economic transformations toward a capitalist democracy, which means that the scope of countries discussed here does not include countries of Central Asia and South Caucasus, nor China, Vietnam, and Laos.

The Temporal Logic of Deservingness: Inequality Beliefs in Two Postsocialist Societies

“…Postsocialist societies (Bandelj 2016;Hann 2002) provide a good framework for examining the temporal dimension of deservingness because after the rupturing events of 1989, individuals living in these societies have experienced the sudden and rapid advent of capitalist markets and Westernstyle political institutions (Berend 2009;Bohle and Greskovits 2012;Vanhuysse 2006) and the simultaneity of political, economic, and social change (Offe 1996). The scope of rising social inequality differed across the region, but it was everywhere experienced as a fast and very tangible process (Ther 2016).…”

“…There are two reasons why postsocialist societies (Bandelj 2016;Hann 2002;Rona-Tas and Guseva 2014;Verdery 1996), namely, societies that have experienced the transformation from state-socialism to capitalism quite recently, are a particularly rewarding context to examine this question. The transformation after 1989-a time of fundamental economic change-was a collective experience for an entire generation.…”

Extending Habitus to Employment Preferences: Identifying Social-actors Influencing Employment Choices Including Self-employment Among Youth in J&K (India)

“…This heralded a new age under the mantra of Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation (LPG). Such, post-socialist economies are characterised by the close coupling of political and economic roles, embracement of greed and self-interest as legitimate motives for action and strong persistence of informality as the modus-operandi (Bandelj, 2016). Research has also pointed that as far as the transitional economies are concerned, the shift from socialism to capitalism is known to provide breeding ground for political capitalism (Staniszkis, 1991).…”

Three Metals and the ‘Post‐Socialist City’: Reclaiming the Peripheries of Urban Knowledge

“…Importantly, post‐socialism has been subject to renewed examination across various social sciences (Stenning and Hörschelmann, ; Bandelj, ; Raikhel and Bemme, ; Schmidt ; Tuvikene, ), possibly finding its way into a third generation of theory‐making on societal transformation in CEE, stretching beyond the first generation (early to mid‐1990s), characterized by linear catch‐up narratives of transition, and the second generation (post‐2000), which placed greater emphasis on context variation and cross‐disciplinarity (Bönker et al ., ; Kollmorgen, ). Even so, the resilience and durability of post‐socialism are remarkable, considering that state socialism is now almost 30 years behind us.…”