Theorizing Transition The Political Economy of Post-Communist Transformations

This collection challenges many of the comfortable assumptions unleashed by the euphoria of democratization and market capitalism in the years post-Glasnost. The transformations underway in post-Communist societies after 1989 have generated complex and highly differentiated regional systems of adjustment.

The contributions by geographers, economists, sociologists, feminists, and planners examine the theoretical perspectives on transition, industrial and regional restructuring, agrarian change, de-collectivization and rural struggles in a variety of eastern and central European contexts. "Theorising Transition" provides both a rich empirical map of the dimensions of post-Communism and raises important theoretical issues about how we interpret these changes.

Theorizing Transition provides a comprehensive examination of the development of the economic, political, social and cultural transformations in post-Communist Europe and offers an important critique of transition theory and policy. The authors create the basis of a theoretical understanding of transition in terms of a political economy of capitalist development. The diversity of forms and complexities of transition are examined through a wide range of examples from post-Soviet countries and comparative studies from countries such as Vietnam and China. Theorizing Transition challenges many of the comfortable assumptions unleashed by the euphoria of democratisation and the triumphalism of market capitalism in the first flush of 'post-Glasnost' openess, showing transition to be much more complex than mainstream theory suggests.