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Does the politico-economic system affect preferences for immigration? In this study, I show that individuals exposed to life under state socialism have formed, and persistently hold different attitudes toward immigration. By exploiting the natural experiment of the division and reunification of Germany, I estimate the effect of state socialism on various measures of attitudes toward immigration. Drawing on rich individual panel data, I find that East Germans who lived under state socialism, are 12.9 percent more likely to oppose immigration than West Germans who spent their entire life in a democratic, capitalist country. The effect is persistent over time and across space, and largest for cohorts born and raised under state socialism. This gap in attitudes is not driven by individuals' experiences in the transition years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but instead can be traced back to a longer-term deterioration in trust. Evidence relating to members of a group that opposed the authoritarian system highlights the importance of state socialist ideology for attitude formation.

In this article, I analyse Czech and Slovak fanzine-making during the transition from state socialism to post-socialism. The regime change ushered in new dominant forms of cultural production, and thus a situation emerged in which cultural hierarchies were being negotiated and new ways of collective action being formed. Fanzines played a crucial role in building up alternative communities in the new neoliberal system, when there was strong demand for Western subcultural styles and the need of safe space of domestic scenes. Independent publishing depends heavily upon that which it opposes, and when major social changes occur, fanzine-making provided a space for negotiating cultural hierarchies, resulting in specific ways in which fanzines help build and maintain alternative scenes.

The Soviet educative system was one of the most highly regarded achievements of state socialism, and today’s Russian public school curriculum represents an important site of legacy – and contestati...

The concept of “post-socialism” not only foregrounds the momentous historical rupture of 1989/1991; it also affirms the persistence of state socialist legacies. Regardless of where transitional pro...

In the history of mankind, there has never been a case where, in a brief episode of the life of one generation, mutual economic relations have changed on such a large scale for so many people as they did in China and Russia in 1989-2020. Both countries are undergoing profound structural and institutional changes, but while the former recorded impressive results in terms of developing and catching up with advanced economies, the latter’s achievements have been very modest. This happened due to many factors – from the traditional cultural heritage to geopolitical conditions, from the legacy from the previous state socialism to different natural resources bases – however, the nature and duration of the political leadership of Deng Xiaoping in China and Mikhail Gorbachev in Russia were of fundamental importance. Without taking into account the influence of the thoughts and actions of these two statesmen, it is impossible to understand the essence of tectonic changes that have occurred in the world economy recently.

As central transport hubs of commodities, people and information, ports play a specific and important role in modern societies. This is valid even more so in socialist states. As we argue in this introduction, and subsequently throughout this Forum, socialist ports were in many ways places of exception: in a political system that preferred closed borders, ports symbolized the ‘gates to the world’; in an economic system that was thoroughly planned, ports became the main contact point for global trade outside of a planned economy. Therefore, while socialist ports differed from other socialist entities, they also differed from non-socialist ports, especially regarding the influence of government control and decision-making through state-owned companies or the ‘primacy of politics’ over economic argument. This specificity of socialist ports during the Cold War is analysed from three perspectives in the articles collected in this Forum: first, on the local or micro level, attention is afforded to agents such as sailors or port workers navigating the particular conditions of the ports; second, the top-down approaches of local or national management of the ports are discussed; third, ports are appraised as part of larger networks in their international context.

Based on our collective ethnography of Cuba's socialist system for the provision of state-subsidised food, this article explores manners in which the state weaves itself into the fabric of people's everyday lives in state-socialist society. Instituted by Cuba's revolutionary government in the early 1960s, Cuba's 'state system for provisioning' is still today the backbone of household subsistence, propelling individuals into direct daily relations with the state via its neighbourhood-level network of stores that distribute food catering to citizens' 'basic needs'. Our ethnography brings together a series of studies conducted by the members of our team in different parts of Havana, charting the most salient aspects of people's interaction with the state in this alimentary context. We argue that the state becomes pervasive in people's daily lives not just because it is present in so much of it, but also as the basic normative premise on which people interpret and evaluate everyday comportments in the interactions food provisioning involves. Life in state socialism involves the constant and intricate comparison of its own realities against the normative ideals the state purports to institute. These 'vernacular comparisons' between life and state, as we call them, are the 'local knowledge' of state socialism in Cuba.A partir de nuestra etnografía colectiva del sistema del abastecimiento de alimentos subsidiados por el Estado cubano este artículo explora las formas en las que el estado se imbrica en el tejido de la vida cotidiana de las personas en el socialismo de estado. Instituido por el gobierno revolucionario cubano a principios de la década de 1960, el ‘sistema estatal de abastecimiento’ de Cuba es todavía hoy la espina dorsal de la subsistencia de los hogares, el cual impele a los individuos a establecer una relación cotidiana y directa con el estado a través de la red de establecimientos comerciales a nivel de barrio que distribuyen alimentos de acuerdo con las “necesidades básicas” de los ciudadanos. Nuestra etnografía reúne una serie de estudios llevados a cabo por los miembros de nuestro equipo en diferentes partes de La Habana, describiendo los aspectos más significativos de la interacción entre las personas y el estado en este contexto alimentario. Argumentamos que el estado se vuelve ubicuo en la vida cotidiana de las personas no sólo por estar presente en numerosos aspectos de la misma, sino también por ser el supuesto básico y normativo con el que la gente interpreta y evalúa sus comportamientos en las interacciones cotidianas relacionadas con el abastecimiento alimentario. La vida en el socialismo de estado involucra una constante e intrincada comparación entre los ideales normativos que el estado pretende institucionalizar y sus realidades. Estas ‘comparaciones vernáculas’ entre vida y estado, como las llamamos, son el ‘conocimiento local’ del socialismo de estado en Cuba.S’appuyant sur une ethnographie collective du système socialiste cubain en matière d’approvisionnement de nourriture subventionné par l'État, cet article étudie la manière dont l'État s'immisce dans la vie quotidienne des gens, dans une société socialiste. Instauré à Cuba au début des années 1960 par le gouvernement révolutionnaire, le « système étatique d'approvisionnement » constitue encore aujourd’hui l'épine dorsale de la subsistance des foyers, et pousse les individus à entretenir des relations quotidiennes directes avec l'État à travers son réseau de magasins de quartier, qui distribuent des aliments correspondant aux « besoins vitaux » des citoyens. Nos travaux ethnographiques réunissent une série d'études, menées par les membres de notre équipe dans différents secteurs de La Havane, mettant en évidence les aspects les plus saillants de l'interaction entre les individus et l'État dans le domaine de l’alimentation. Nous soutenons que l'État pénètre dans la vie quotidienne des gens, non seulement parce qu'il y est presque omniprésent, mais aussi comme une prémisse normative fondamentale à partir de laquelle on interprète et évalue les comportements quotidiens dans les interactions faisant partie de l'approvisionnement alimentaire. La vie sous le socialisme étatique implique une comparaison complexe et constante entre ses propres réalités et les idéaux normatifs que l'État prétend instaurer. Ce que nous appelons les « comparaisons vernaculaires » entre la vie et l'État composent la « connaissance locale » du socialisme étatique à Cuba.

Мета статті. Реформа децентралізації України передбачає створення нового територіального устрою. Усі запропоновані підходи побудовані на географічних, історичних, економічних, транспортних критеріях, проте не враховують специфіку ідентичності населення регіонів. Метоюпублікації є привернення увагидо своєрідності населення територій, що колись входили до складу Брацлавщини. Методологія. Теоретичною основою аналізу є теорія фронтиру в австралійському доробку –«big man's frontier». Наукова новизна.Своєрідність брацлавського варіанту українського фронтиру полягає в тому, що саме тут відбувалося основне гаряче протистояння кількох потужних претендентів на українські землі: Речі Посполитої, Московського царства/Російської імперії, Кримського ханату і Оттоманської імперії. Унаслідок цієї боротьби навколо земельного питання формувалися подібні до австралійського фронтиру наслідки: велике землеволодіння, тривала перевага підневільної праці, популярність соціалістичних ідей, перемога державного соціалізму, –що обумовило такі риси ідентичності, як подвійність поведінки населення – колективізм таіндивідуалізм, лояльність до влади іготовність до спротиву. Утім,природа формування ззовні схожих рис брацлавського фронтируінша. Оптика «земельного питання» дозволяє розглянути ідентичність населення цих теренів в умовах фронтиру з майнового, правового, етнографічногопогляду.Висновки.Оскільки аналіз здійснювався лише у розрізі земельного питання, є необхідність його продовжити з інших ракурсів, наприклад, релігії, звичаєвого права, національної самосвідомості у ХХ ст., колективної та історичної пам’яті, використовуючи теоретичний доробок австралійських вчених. Подібні дослідження дозволять під час продовження реформи децентралізації адміністративного управління приймати більш виважені рішення при створенні нових регіонів.

The collapse of state socialism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union have had critical impacts on the former state-socialist countries. Alongside with the political and economic restructuring, p...

Across former Eastern Europe, the transition from state socialism toward neoliberal capitalism has been accompanied by a marked reduction in emphasis on working-class identities. Because of the centrality of class to socialist-era identity-construction projects, the recent and relatively sudden ascendancy of various forms of individualist, consumption-oriented subjectivity in postrevolutionary societies has produced conflicts that are often more visible than in societies where capitalism has been the accepted economic paradigm for much longer. This shift can be seen in the realm of art and visual culture: Images of the worker once dominated public spaces under state socialism, competing in number with representations of leaders and communist ideologues, but since 1989 they have often been vandalized, dismantled, or else relocated to decay in relative obscurity. Where new public images of the worker do appear in postsocialist neoliberal conditions, they frequently serve as nexuses of controversy, where generational and ideological conflicts regarding current labor conditions and the legacy of worker solidarity play out. The debates surrounding representations of workers in postsocialism are both part of a global history of postsocialist art and part of the history of labor and its relation to contemporary urban space. This article examines artistic representations of the worker sited in public space in postsocialist Albania, in order to map the political and artistic discourses that animate engagements with working-class identity in conditions of neoliberal social transformation.

The article presents state-socialist and Catholic reproductive and population politics of Cold War Poland, focusing on competing discourses of population growth that were present in public debates ...

This article explores the political effects of the development of systems analysis as a form of “infrastructural knowledge”—that is, as a form of knowledge concerned with infrastructure, and an infrastructure of knowledge—that contributed to internal dissensus among scientific experts in the Soviet Union. Systems expertise is largely missing from existing work on the history of Soviet infrastructure. The article analyzes the development of governmental, managerial, and industrial applications of systems analysis in the Soviet context, as well as the transfer of Soviet systems expertise to developing countries. It argues that systems analysis constitutes a form of infrastructural knowledge that enabled Soviet scientists to criticize governmental policies, particularly largescale, top-down infrastructure projects. This critique is interpreted as an expression of a new normativity about what constitutes good governance; it became particularly salient when Soviet scientists were facing infrastructural projects in the global South. Systems analysis, in this way, constituted an important intellectual resource for endogenous liberalization of the authoritarian regime.

The purpose of the article is to analyse the political thought of the Polish Socialist Party former Revolutionary Faction (PSPdFrRew) formed in 1928. The focus is primarily on the PSPdFR's attitude towards issues such as the state, economy, and democracy. The research utilised text analysis and document analysis methods. The results of the research found that the former PSP Revolutionary Faction proclaimed the principles of state socialism and used evolutionary methods to raise the standard of living of workers and introduced the Polish Socialist Republic. Although the PSP former Revolutionary Faction perceived its place in the broadly understood Sanation camp, it had negative attitudes towards the proposals of political, economic and social solutions of conservative and liberal representatives. Despite the often-declared attachment to democracy, the PSPdFR strongly criticised parliamentarism and proposed the introduction of strong arm rule.

In the mid-1980s, the Eastern Bloc faced increased pressure on the issue of human rights from western governments, ngos, and indigenous dissident. Although the Socialist Bloc had claimed to represent the ideals of human rights throughout the Cold War, by 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev called on the leaders of the Eastern Bloc to work together on a coordinated response to this threat and in response East Germany proposed the creation of an international declaration based on the principles of socialist—rather than bourgeois—human rights. Within a few years, however, the project collapsed in ignominious failure as it provided a vehicle for reformers to challenge the status quo in the name of human rights by demanding greater democratization. Although the project was originally devised to refute the human rights claims of the West, it instead acted to spur on the intellectual collapse of the Eastern Bloc’s ideological unity at its time of greatest crisis.

In this paper, we explore critically deinstitutionalisation reform, focusing specifically on the postsocialist region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). We argue that\ud deinstitutionalisation in postsocialist CEE has generated re-institutionalising outcomes, including renovation of existing institutions and/or creation of new, smaller settings that have nevertheless reproduced key features of institutional life. To explain these trends, we first consider the historical background of the reform, highlighting the legacy of state socialism and the effects of postsocialist neoliberalisation. We then discuss the impact of ‘external’ drivers of deinstitutionalisation in CEE, particularly the European Union and its funding, as well as human rights discourses incorporated in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The analysis is supported by looking at the current situation in Hungary and Bulgaria through recent reports by local civil society organisations. In conclusion, we propose some definitional tactics for redirecting existing resources towards genuine community-based services.

After the demise of state socialism, public space became an issue of contention that occupied an important place within societies’ efforts to come to terms with the recent past. Extant scholarship documented extensively how postcommunist societies in Central and Eastern Europe have reconfigured the public space by removing the symbolic presence of the former regime (e.g., monuments and statues, but also place- and street names). However, there is a scarcity of research done on exploring the reception of these broad changes brought to the public statuary and urban nomenclature. In this study, we aim to contribute to this nascent strand of literature by investigating the generational differences in social attitudes towards the symbolic transformation of public space in postcommunist Romania. Data collected through a national web-survey conducted in February 2021 (n = 1156) revealed significant intergenerational differences regarding the removal of monuments and the renaming of streets. In particular, higher approval of such memory work was found among the generations born during communism in comparison to the postcommunist generation. Taking stock of these generational differences, as well as the factors underpinning them, contributes to a better understanding of how ordinary people relate to the politics of memory enacted in transforming societies.

This chapter examines the most important debates and research trends in relation to social welfare and family policies in Central-Eastern European (CEE) countries, with an emphasis on how these policies shaped gender relations in the region. This scholarship reveals how important regional differences in construction of gender roles and corresponding welfare policies in postcommunism were present already in the pre-World War I period. Moreover, the period of state socialism was internally differentiated: while the regime’s goal was to mobilize the female labor force immediately after World War II, following 1956, welfare policies were aimed at shifting gender roles to emphasize women’s maternal role. After the communist system collapsed, the research on gender and welfare policies in the region was at first engaged in characterizing the common trend of welfare policy refamilialization and then started to define and explain differences between CEE. New concepts, such as “degenderization,” started to play a role in placing gender at the center of analysis. The chapter concludes with remarks on how recent anti-feminist trends in public debates again inspire welfare policies aimed at retraditionalization and regenderization of work and care.

This chapter argues that in order to understand the historical trajectory of women’s representation in politics in Central-Eastern Europe since the collapse of state socialism, it is important to focus on the interaction of two main factors: the persistence of significant structural barriers over this period and the sustained efforts made by women’s advocates. Women had relatively high representation in communist legislatures, with scholars debating whether these women were merely tokens or could advance women’s interests. In the postcommunist period, there has been a gradual, albeit uneven, rise in women’s representation, including some notable women prime ministers and presidents in the 2010s and as European Union commissioners. Scholars point to some obstacles that are legacies of the communist system, such as the relegation of women in politics to “women’s issues,” women’s double burden, and stereotypes that women are unfit for leadership. Others point to obstacles that relate to the postcommunist competition for power, such as negative media representation, party-based candidate recruitment systems, and the function of the electoral systems. But, as considered in the literature on women’s substantive representation in the region, some women in politics have carved out authority on some social issues, some legislatures and parties have adopted gender quotas (even if they are only partially implemented in practice), and some gender equality advocates have promoted policies to increase the visibility of women and strengthen institutional structures focused on gender equality. This study shows that both structure and agency matter for women’s representation, and that the balance between agency and structure shifts over time and across countries.

The 1989 collapse of state socialism in Europe ushered in a wave of political democratisation and economic liberalisation that quickly spread from Eastern and Central Europe to the Soviet Union. Ob...

Whilst the fall of state socialism in 1989 opened up a space for the Polish LGBT movement to emerge and develop, over the last three decades the process has taken place against the backdrop of mate...

The article explores the importance of responsible self-government in a ‘non-liberal’ society. Drawing on governmentality and critical ability studies, it argues that the governmental technique of ...

Recent scholarship has thoroughly documented climate change attitudes within the majority of the English-speaking countries of the USA, the UK, Canada, and Australia. In these nations, political identity is widely recognized as a uniquely powerful predictor of climate change attitudes and, at least in the USA, several studies have found that education moderates the effect of political identity. The cross-national dynamics of climate change attitudes and political identity are not well-characterized, particularly in nations with a history of state socialism. In this manuscript, we consider the role of political and free market ideological polarization around climate change within Anglophone, Western European, and post-Communist states. Further, we investigate education as a moderator of political and ideological factors cross-nationally. We suggest that, in comparison to Western European and post-Communist states, the role of political and ideological polarization in Anglophone states is exceptional in shaping climate change attitudes. Using data for 20 countries in the 2010 ISSP Environmental Module, we find that the effect of party affiliation and free market ideology on the perception of climate change’s danger and importance is strongest in Anglophone states, more modest in Western European countries, and limited within post-Communist states. Further, education moderates most intensely in Anglophone states. Our results suggest that there is something exceptional occurring within Anglophone states with regard to political polarization and climate change attitudes.

German chambers of industry and commerce were mainly founded in the nineteenth century. Their task portfolio covers business self-governance, services for members, lobbying on regional policies, and the implementation of public policy, particularly in vocational training. This chapter describes the distribution and organisational structure of German chambers of commerce. Until the mid-1990s, these chambers were an important and undisputed component of functional self-administration in Germany. But, with the end of the GDR, the norm of ‘compulsory membership’ was disavowed on the basis of experience with state socialism. Furthermore, there was a reform of membership fees, which led to significantly higher financial burdens for small business. Against this background, an ‘insurrectionary’ movement, critical of the chambers, was formed by some members of the chambers from the 2000s onwards. It lobbied political parties against compulsory membership and filed suits against the chambers before the courts. This juridical strategy has been successful since 2010. However, the effect was fairly moderate. A gradual transformation can be assumed in the sense that the interest articulation of the chambers of commerce has been restricted.

Deindustrialization was one of the most disruptive social transformations of the twentieth century. Why did democratic capitalist regimes permit and survive this process, while state social...

Marathi Abstract: डा. आबडकराना वाटत अस की, भारताचया आरथिक उननतीसाठी दारिदरi व विषमता निरमलन आणि बहजन समाजाची शोषणमकतता यावर भर दिला पाहिज. 1930 व 1940 या काळात व पढही काही वरष तयानी आपलया लखनात व भाषणात बहजन समाजाचया शोषणमकततवर भर दिला. डा. आबडकराना समाजवाद हवा होता, परत पारपारिक समाजवाद तयाना पसत नवहता. तयाचया दषटिकोणातन शरमीक आणि शोषित वरगाचया आरथिक सरकषकड अधिक लकष दऊन योजना तयार करायला पाहिज. नतिक पररणा लोकामधय असायला पाहिज, आणि तयानी मिळन ज काही आपलया शरमान कमविल ती सरव सपतती समान रपात वाटली पाहिज. डा. आबडकरानी घटना समितीला सादर कलल निवदन ह राजयसमाजवादाच परारप होत. राजय घटनतच समाजवादाची तरतद असावी अस तयाच मत होत. सविधानाचया उददशीकत आणि निरदशक तततवात डा. आबडकरानी समाजवादाचा समावश कलला आह. जयात बदध तततवजञानाचया छटा सपषटपण दिसन यतात. डा. आबडकराच आरथिक धोरण महणज आरथिकदषटया कलयाणकारी राजयाचया निरमितीला साहयभत ठरणार ‘समदधीच अरथकारण’ आणि सामाजिकदषटया समतावादी समाजरचनचया परसथापनला गती दणार ‘समाजोदधाराच अरथकारण व कलयाणकारी राजयाच अरथशासतर’आह. English Abstract: Dr. Ambedkar believed that for India's economic prosperity, the emphasis should be on the eradication of poverty and inequality and the freedom from exploitation of the masses. In his writings and speeches during the 1930s and 1940s and for some years to come, he emphasized the need to free the masses from exploitation. Dr. Ambedkar wanted socialism, but he did not like traditional socialism. From their point of view, planning should be done with more focus on the financial security of the working and exploited class. Moral motivation must be in the people, and all the wealth they have earned through their labor must be shared equally. Dr. The statement submitted by Ambedkar to the Constituent Assembly was a model of state socialism. He was of the view that there should be a provision for socialism in the state constitution itself. In the objectives and guiding principles of the Constitution, Dr. Ambedkar has embraced socialism. In which the shades of Buddha's philosophy are visible. Dr. Ambedkar's economic policy is the 'Economy of Prosperity' which is conducive to the creation of an economically prosperous state and the 'Economics of Social Welfare and the Economics of the Welfare State' which accelerates the establishment of a socially egalitarian society.

The Paris Commune had shown that the aim of the working class had to be one of building a society radically different from capitalism and embodied the idea of social-political change and its practical application. It became synonymous with the very concept of revolution and inspired Karl Marx to develop his reflections on communism. The alternative to capitalist alienation was achievable only if the subaltern classes became aware of their condition as new slaves and embarked on a struggle to radically transform the world in which they were exploited. Their mobilization and active participation in this process could not stop on the day after the conquest of power. Social mobilization would have to continue after the revolution, in order to avert any drift towards the kind of state socialism that Marx always opposed with the utmost tenacity and conviction. In The Civil War in France, he explained that, after the conquest of power, the working class would have to fight to uproot the economical foundations upon which rests the existence of classes, and therefore of class rule.

The empirical literature is inconclusive about whether a country's democratization goes hand in hand with a reallocation of economic resources. With newly available individual-level data of former residents of the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR), we analyze how supporters and opponents of the socialist system performed within the market-based democracy of West Germany after reuni cation. Protesters, those who helped to overthrow the socialist regime in the Peaceful Revolution show higher life satisfaction and better labor market outcomes in the new economic system. Former members of the ruling socialist party and employees in state-supervised sectors become substantially less satis ed. These results do not seem to be driven by individual reactions to the transition, but rather by the removal of discriminatory practices in the GDR. Additional results indicate that conformism in the GDR also explains political preferences over the almost three decades after the reuni cation of Germany.

The Hungarian People’s Republic (1949–1989) was an autocratic regime governed by the state party (Hungarian Working People’s Party; from 1956 on: Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party) under the influence of the Soviet Union. The key feature of the regime was the leadership of Janos Kadar (from 1956 to 1988), the single-party state and the entanglement between the state and the Communist/Socialist Party (we can only speak of hardline communism until after the Revolution of 1956—from the 1960s on state socialism is a more accurate description and the party name reflected this characteristic). Our data are illustrative of the constant effort directed at increasing output legitimacy. The electoral system, the way the National Assembly continued to operate, and the publication of a designated set of legislative items all served to keep up the appearance of democracy. The thematic distribution of decisions was not primarily reflective of public preferences but of the agenda pursued by decision-makers. The punctuations in the policy agendas of the Kadar era were partly caused by Soviet decisions that elevated the role of certain policy areas in the Hungarian policy arena.

In his short academic career, Nicos Poulantzas (1936–79) contributed to Marxist theory, analyzed inter-war and postwar contemporary capitalism, and outlined political strategies. This entry contextualizes, summarizes and critiques his work on the state and state power, fascism and military dictatorships, the nature and contradictions of imperialism, and contemporary class relations. His approach evolved from existentialist humanist through a hybrid Althusserian structuralist and Gramscian position aligned with Marxist-Leninism, to a relational approach, influenced in part by Foucault, that backed left Eurocommunism. These shifts were influenced by political events (e.g., the 1967 Greek military coup, May 1968 in France, the breakdown of Southern European dictatorships and the collapse of state socialism). The entry also presents his prophetic work on state intervention, authoritarian statism, the rise of populism and their implications for political strategy.

This book is an exploration into the uncharted territory of social reality. It explores social relations and politics, presenting a critique of contemporary socioeconomic systems and discussions on the Marxist Doctrine of Transition. The book is intended to meet Robert Heilbroner's request.

A binary debate has developed internationally between abolitionists and sex workers’ rights (SWR) activists: this involves the so-called ‘sex wars’, which dominate the scholarship and activism regarding commercial sex worldwide. While abolitionists aim to eliminate prostitution, which they see as a manifestation of patriarchy and violence against women, SWR activists aim to recognize sex work as work, and to fight for better working conditions in the sex industry. Both movements have become institutionalized, and various local NGOs and international networks have been established to advocate for these political aims. These organizations try to influence national and international legislation regarding the selling of sex by building powerful alliances. The financial support of donors is also dependent on how compatible these movements are with neoliberal power relations. Furthermore, the development and political influence of local abolitionist or sex worker movements also depends on countries’ positions in the global economy. The paper analyses the political representation and the role of spokespersons within the prostitution/sex work debate and also reflects on the advocacy work of Hungarian organizations active in this field since 1989. It discusses the evolution of a politics of recognition in the struggle related to commercial sex, and how transnational power dynamics on a global scale have affected Hungarian movements and civil society organizations since the era of state socialism.

Chapter 15 deals with the question of the level of public support for the death penalty in Hungary and how public attitudes have changed in the decades following the abolition of capital punishment. This public opinion is contrasted with the results of how homicide trends changed over the same period, showing the difference between murder rates today and during the the last one and a half decades of state socialism, when capital punishment was maintained.

In 1959, an edited volume entitled The State and Economic Growth was published. It consisted of papers presented at a 1956 conference related to the same topic. Of interest here was the inclusion of N. G. Butlin’s paper entitled “Colonial Socialism in Australia”. The existence of colonial socialism has never been in doubt; nor has its importance to the development of the Australian economy ever been seriously questioned. What has been the subject of considerable contention has been the questions pertaining to what caused colonial socialism to be established in Australian colonies during a period of pronounced liberal thinking and what effects (good and bad) did the existence of colonial socialism have on Australian economic development generally and the development of private enterprise particularly? In this paper I review the position established by Butlin in his 1959 contribution and explore the subsequent discussion it generated both in terms of refinement and refutation. In doing so, I concentrate my discussion by reviewing the areas of employment, finance sourcing and railway investment in the context of the effects this activity had on the capacity of the private sector to develop in such an environment.

The demise of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991 when viewed alongside the seeming success of the Peoples Republic of China’s (PRC) reforms since the 1980s is a study in contrasts. This chapter compares the approaches adopted by the Soviet and Chinese Communist Parties to the reform of state socialism and considers why one ended in collapse and the other in resurgence. The chapter considers the specific challenges each state faced, international and domestic, in the context of neoliberal capitalism; the intellectual compasses that guided their respective party leaderships; the roles played by domestic forces in the reforms; and what light all these considerations cast on the role of the state in socialist reform.

State socialism—once upon a time called (the only) “really existing socialism”—was undoubtedly a process that shaped the history of humankind during the twentieth century. Its flaws concerning freedoms and rights were early and widely acknowledged. Nevertheless, its military, economic, and technological achievements in the URSS seemed to ensure its future, which—for many people among which some of its critics—could include some kind of liberalization. It was possible to think that the combination of the expansion of productive forces with improvements of social relations would end by shaping state socialism as a stronger and more desirable system than capitalism, thus confirming in the long run Marxist prediction and moreover the hopes of a better future awakened in so many people by socialist proposals. Possible socialism was perhaps not a contradiction in itself, as so many had believed before 1917.

This chapter explains the way Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam underwent transitions from state socialism following the Cold War, and why this has involved only very limited economic and political liberalisation. It shows that the privatisation of public land, natural resources and state-owned enterprises and the opening of closed economies to foreign investment provided opportunities for elite coalitions of state, business and military actors to sustain authoritarian regimes. Thanks to Cold War legacies and ongoing authoritarian repression, civil society has proved unable to effectively contest this. Where protests have occurred, they have been relatively feeble, with slogans recalling the nationalist rhetoric of the past. However, widening inequality, ongoing disruptive infrastructure schemes, and a burgeoning young population are long-term trends that portend future legitimacy struggles.

Iossifova adopts the lifecourse approach and its imperatives to link the lifecourse narratives of older people in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia and the Village in the Bulgarian Balkans with the wider socio-political context within which they occurred. She focuses on the conceptual and empirical domains of migration, housing and labour (including care) and the two eras of communism (1944–1989) and the Transition (since 1990) to demonstrate how the personal and the circumstantial are entangled with the experience of ageing in Bulgaria. She argues that older people today developed agency, having had to transition from the acceptance of their inability to change the course of their lives to navigating an emerging world in which the former promise of the state to take care of everyone and everything no longer held.

Scholars have pointed to the period 1958-1962 as the beginning of Taiwan's transition to export-oriented industrialization. Although the Nationalist Party (KMT) had traditionally supported state socialism, the KMT began to oversee economic reforms in the late 1950s, setting Taiwan on the course of export-led growth under a capitalist model. Using archival materials from both the United States and Taiwan, I argue that the reforms resulted from U.S. influence on how the KMT understood the role of economic development in its grand strategy. U.S. arguments succeeded in creating political support at the highest levels of the KMT leadership for a reform-oriented faction in the economic bureaucracy. This finding shows how an aid donor can promote economic reforms even when the recipient is strategically important for the donor: although threats to enforce conditionality may not be credible, the donor can influence the recipient through persuasion.

The demise of state socialism, made definitive by the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, has given rise to an entirely novel type of political economy, characterized by the sudden political creation of a private economy. Let us call it Post-Socialist Capitalism. In this chapter, I discuss four questions concerning this new animal. First, what was the context of birth of Post-Socialist Capitalism which shaped its main features ? Second, how has it performed in economic terms over the 20 years of its operation ? Third, how do people living under Post-Socialist Capitalism evaluate its dynamics and results ? Finally, what are the major trends and associated frictions in the institutional development and political dynamics of Post-Socialist Capitalism ?

The death penalty was a regular punishment in the 1950s, and it was used for a whole range of ordinary crimes over the decade. However, its extensive use took place after 1956, when it became a political tool for retaliation against those involved in the revolution.

Transitions to democracy after state socialism differ from earlier transitions in at least two aspects: their agenda are longer, and the repertoire of endogenous strategic orientations and widely agreed-upon goals is weaker and less unified. Hence ‘imported’ Western models become hegemonic. This chapter argues that the stable adoption of these imports, political democracy and a market economy, is contingent not just upon the ‘success’ of these institutional patterns, but, in addition, upon a widely shared sense of internal unity of the nations undergoing transformation – ultimately upon the spread of the norms and values of citizenship.

Former socialist countries in the Balkans have attracted substantial foreign investments in their economies in the past two decades. Focusing on top-ranking investments in the region from China, India, Russia, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, this study examines the rationales driving these foreign capital inflows into Balkan economies, the domestic industries and assets they support and acquire in the region, and their social and political effects. Mapping these investment patterns, the essay argues, reveals the emergent dynamics of contemporary capitalism in the region and globally, especially how “central” and “peripheral” postsocialist and postcolonial economies transitioning to capitalism invest and thereby shape each other, the emerging geopolitical order of power, and the nature of global capitalism. In the Balkans these dynamics are marked by the following intersecting events: Indian, Chinese, Russian, and Balkan states transitions to capitalism after colonialism and state socialism; India, Ch...