This book offers important new insights into recent advances and perspectives in the field of political economy of development in Southeastern European countries. In addition, it provides theoretical and empirical contributions to political economy of development in an international context. Written by authors from Greece, Serbia and Turkey, the book covers a broad spectrum of topics – from macroeconomics and economic policy to international political economy and globalization. Presenting new and original ideas, this is a valuable resource for anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of political economy of development in Southeastern Europe: academicians, policymakers and business practitioners.

Recent developments in the global economy, such as the Greek budget crisis, have led to new focus on the role of Europe, and in particular on the countries in Europe’s south-eastern region. This new volume from a global set of contributors explores south-east Europe’s present and future direction, placing it in the context of the history of the region since the end of the Second World War. Through an exploration of Europe’s cultural and political economy, this volume argues that the south-east part of Europe is currently the most crucial component of Europe’s future development. The book charts the post-World War Two ‘evolution’ of the continent, taking in such key turning points as the 1971 breakdown of the fixed exchange rate system, the breakdown of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, and the 2008 global financial collapse. In doing so, the book seeks to explain why and how the current events in south-east Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean can be seen as the weakest points in the wider capitalist system in Europe, and how the issues faced by these regions can provide insight into a possible re-design of European governance. Including a comprehensive editorial introduction, this timely and important book is fully up to date with recent global events, including the 2011 Arab Spring, and provides context and comparison with the countries in the EU.

By the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, in most parts of Eastern Europe, high expectations associated with postsocialist transition have been substituted by disillusionment. After 1990, Eastern Europe has been internationally treated with a low-interest acknowledgement of what was understood as a slow and erratic, but unquestionable process of integration in a Western-dominated world order. In the context of today's geopolitical reorganization, East European examples of authoritarian politics once again become discussed as significant reference points for Western and global politics. This book represents a contribution to this debate from a distinctive East European perspective: that of new left scholars and activists from the region, whose lifetime largely corresponds to the transformations of the postsocialist period, and who came to develop an understanding of their environment in terms of its relations to global capitalist processes. A both theoretical and empirical contribution, the book provides essential insights on topics conventionally associated with East European transition from privatization to the politicized slogans of corruption or civil society, and analyzes their connection to the newest reconfigurations of postsocialist capitalist regimes. As a contribution to contemporary debates on the present global socio-political transformation, this collection does not only seek to debate analytical statements, but also to change the field where analytical stakes are set, by adding perspectives that think Eastern Europe's global relations from within the regional context and its political stakes. Agnes Gagyi works on East European politics and social movements from the perspective of the region's long-term global integration. She is researcher on East European social movements at the University of Gothenburg, and member of the Working Group for Public Sociology "Helyzet" in Budapest. Ondřej Slačálek is a political scientist and journalist, he focuses on East European politics, nationalism and social movements. He works at Charles University, Prague. He is a regular collaborator of Czech new left journal A2/A2larm.

This compact volume is meant as a modest contribution to the ongoing debate on how to transform in particular the radically reforming Eastern European economies into more productive sociopolitical organizations. Although my main focus here is on the economics of reform and east-west assistance, I have tried to embed the multiple technical aspects of restructuring such a resource alloca tion into the context of remaking Eastern Europe. That the volume coincides with the seminal transformations of the communist countries of Eastern Europe is, of course, not fortuitous. But I shall have much less to say about the politi cal transitions from communism to parliamentary democracy, except the ways in which the latter may bolster or hinder the hoped-for economic mutations. In taking stock of where I stand on the issue of "radical reform" of planned economics in general and the CMEA in particular, both still moving targets, I have benefited greatly from participation in formal and informal conferences on economic reform. The product has also profited from many informal discus sions and exchanges of views among friends and colleagues, including those entrusted with and purely interested in efforts on the overall topic of the study launched from within the broad context of the United Nations, my at times reluctant employer.

A collection of 16 essays written over the period 1984 to 1996, and so preserving perspectives at different stages of what we now know was the decline and breakup of the socialist economies of the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. They consider failures and their causes of political economy reform, determinants of the collapse of the system, and the feasibility of the process of systemic change. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR