Pathways from and Crises after Communism Part 2. The Case of Former USSR and China

Abstract

The transition from socialist redistributive economy to capitalist markets has proved to be a rockier road that anticipated. The degree and character of difficulties that the countries faced during the transition depended on the nature of the pathways taken. In this paper I distinguish three major trajectories various countries followed: Central European neo-liberalism; post USSR neo-patrimonial regime and the East Asian (Chinese and Vietnamese) transformation from below. Rather than distinguishing the “right way” from the “wrong way” I explore what the diff erent costs and benefi ts of the various pathways were at various stages of the transformation.

Keywords

• neo-patrimonial regimes
• regimes
• transformation
• USSR
• China