Reform and Counterreform: The Path to Market in Hungary and Cuba

Cruz, Consuelo; Seleny, Anna

doi:10.2307/4146938

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Rectification was the name that the government gave to its mid-1986 decision to close the economic openings of the 1970s such as farmers' markets and self-employment. In the words of Mujal-León and Busby (2001), Rectification was a return to totalitarianism after a period of "softer post-totalitarianism," making Cuba one of the least liberalized economies in the Communist world (see Cruz and Seleny 2002;MesaLago et al 2000;Eckstein 1994;Bengelsdorff 1994;Zimbalist 1994). Even though officials recognized that Rectification proved to be ruinous (Roque Cabello and Sánchez Herrero 1998), this anti-market stand was reaffirmed in 1991 (see Domínguez 1993a;LeoGrande 2002;Pérez-López 1994;Miami Herald, September 28, 1992, 12A).…”

Section: A Small Opening To Soft-liners In 1993-95?mentioning

confidence: 97%

The Gatekeeper State: Limited Economic Reforms and Regime Survival in Cuba, 1989-2002

Corrales¹

2004

Latin American Research Review

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In the 1990s the Cuban regime displayed two unexpected characteristics. One was survival. The other was the implementation of uneven economic reforms, meaning that some sectors of the economy were revamped, while others remained untouched. This article connects these two outcomes by arguing that uneven economic reforms explain regime survival. Uneven economic reforms served to strengthen the power of the state vis-à-vis society, and within the state, the power of hard-liners. This new type of state, which I call "the gatekeeper state," dominates society through a new mechanism-it fragments the economy into different sectors of varying degrees of profitability and then determines which citizens have access to each respective sector. While some authoritarian regimes stay alive by providing widespread economic growth, the Cuban regime in the 1990s survived instead by restricting access to capitalist rewards. This has permitted the incumbents to navigate through societal pressures and postpone regime transition.

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Section: A Small Opening To Soft-liners In 1993-95?mentioning

confidence: 97%

The Gatekeeper State: Limited Economic Reforms and Regime Survival in Cuba, 1989-2002

Corrales¹

2004

Latin American Research Review

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“…The Second Economy primarily consisted of private and semi-private enterprises in retailing, merchandise, farming, and agricultural processing. Although the share of Second Economy in the social gross output remained small, its development had been characterized by considerable diversification (Cruz and Seleny, 2002). The third aspect is the establishment of particularistic bargaining regime between state and stateowned enterprise managers over output objectives and wages.…”

Section: Institutional Infrastructures and Post-communist Transition:mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…What this particularistic pattern of bargaining introduced to the state-owned economy is quasi-market incentive in which consideration of efficiency reshaped Communist managers' thinking. More importantly, it triggered the formation of interest groups, who actively engaged in bargaining with the state for the particularistic interest (Cruz and Seleny, 2002).…”

Section: Institutional Infrastructures and Post-communist Transition:mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This theory implies that people more tolerant to risky reforms enable democratic governments to implement draconian policy reforms. From studying the economic reform in Hungary, Cruz and Seleny (2002) and Seleny (1995) emphasized the importance of reform history in determining the viability of liberalization in post-Communist era. They argued that the establishment of property rights regime, for instance in Hungary, under Communism provided a critical micro-foundation on the basis of which liberal market mechanism can work in post-Communist era.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Competitive Rent-Seeking, Socioeconomic Infrastructures, and Post-Communist Transition in Central and Eastern Europe

Chen

Xin

2019

Chin. J. Int. Rev

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The political and economic transformation of former Soviet Bloc Europe has been far-reaching in the last 30 years. Although most former socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe abandoned the Communist ancien régime, not all of them managed to fully integrate liberal democracy and market economy into society. Some scholars explained this divergence in development through the dichotomous regime types. From the perspective of what propels the retreat of political power from market and with the theory of competitive rent-seeking, we demonstrate that the retreating logic is underlain by the competition between rent-seekers. A competitive rent-seeking regime dissipates the rent through distorting market mechanism and dampens both political authority and rent-seeker’s enthusiasm, providing a better prospect for economic liberalization. Through a comparative case study of transitional experiences of Hungary and Belarus, we find that countries with pre-existing socioeconomic infrastructures that facilitate the formation of competitive rent-seeking regime are more successful in economic liberalization. We suggest that the academic interest previously paid to dichotomous regime-type argument should be diverted into a deeper inquiry of the evolution of socioeconomic institutions that shape the state–market interaction.

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“…However, the recession in Russia and other post‐Soviet Eastern European countries was deeper and lasted longer than in Central Europe where, many scholars believe, early economic reforms and the relatively large group of entrepreneurs helped to resist more serious transformation shocks (Swaan and Lissowska, ; Zukowski, ; Smallbone and Welter, ). This ‘pretransition market microfoundation’ softened the impacts of the transformation crisis (Cruz and Seleny, ). Such bottom‐up socialist entrepreneurs were also the engines of marketisation in China and Vietnam (Nee and Opper, ).…”

Section: Pathways From Planning To Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Planning to Market: A Framework for Cuba

Font

Jancsics

2015

Bull Latin American Res

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The measures introduced by Raúl Castro since 2008 and the most recent US-Cuba policy change indicate that Cuba is shifting from a planned and highly centralised state socialist economic model toward one in which economic actors and markets become main drivers of the economy. The examples of Asian and Central and Eastern European socialist countries suggest four distinguished pathways for such transition. The question is which one may provide a feasible model for Cuba. Based on the country's economic and population structure, this study places the Cuban case within the framework of socialist economic transitions and explores some policy implications.

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Reform and Counterreform: The Path to Market in Hungary and Cuba

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

The Gatekeeper State: Limited Economic Reforms and Regime Survival in Cuba, 1989-2002

The Gatekeeper State: Limited Economic Reforms and Regime Survival in Cuba, 1989-2002

Competitive Rent-Seeking, Socioeconomic Infrastructures, and Post-Communist Transition in Central and Eastern Europe

From Planning to Market: A Framework for Cuba

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