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Examines the external economic influences that have affected democratic consolidation. The analysis concentrates on the role played by external economic actors, taking as a case study the IMF and a comparison of its role with that of the EU. The first section considers the IMF provision of financial and technical assistance to facilitate the political and economic transition process. It also examines the role of the IMF in providing policy advice and acting as a catalyst to obtain financial support from other resources. The second section describes the activities of the IMF in transition countries. The third discusses links between a market‐oriented economy and democratization at a general level, while the fourth indicates how tensions may arise between the two in specific cases of post‐communist transition. The fifth section discusses IMF conditionality as applied to the transition countries with regard to the needs, objectives, and characteristics of the country itself, its ability to bargain with the international organization in question, and the international economic and political environment. The sixth section assesses how appropriate the policy descriptions of the IMF were for the economies in transition and what kind of positive and negative lessons might be drawn from applying conditionality. Lastly, the chapter discusses the implications in this context of proposals for IMF reform.

This concluding chapter considers what is gained by juxtaposing the varied analyses within a common framework intended to analyse the effects of distinctive institutional legacies on the responses to common pressures frequently associated with ‘globalization.’ The chapter begins by considering some of the shared features of industrial relations that emerged in the course of industrialization in late developing and socialist states, noting some factors that make it difficult to apply models based on the experiences of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (O.E.C.D.) countries to the analysis of labour regimes elsewhere. The comparisons also reveal important differences that distinguished industrial relations in socialist countries from those in post‐colonial contexts, and the ways in which these differences may contribute to different patterns and outcomes in the transformation of industrial relations in the two contexts. The remainder of the chapter highlights similarities and differences in trends across the cases considered in the contributions to this volume, and goes on to inductively construct a theoretical scheme for tracing how varied historical inheritances in the late‐industrializing and post‐socialist economies create different sets of expectations, pressures, and challenges for economic reformers as well as for workers and organized labour. The role of unique historical factors and institutional structures is also considered, with new questions raised on the basis of specific variations that occur within or cut across the categories of post‐socialist and post‐colonial settings. The chapter concludes by suggesting that the concept of globalization is most useful when it is employed not as a universal model for projecting trajectories of institutional change but as a more restricted framework for capturing the common challenges facing labour and other economic factors in the process of economic adjustment.

This chapter analyzes the mechanisms underlying the large and temporally resilient democratic values deficit among residents of post-communist countries. While a number of pre-communist and post-communist demographic, political, and economic factors affect democratic support patterns, these features of living in a post-communist country alone cannot account for the significant democratic deficit of post-communist citizens. However, the study found very strong support for the effects of exposure to communism at the individual level: the extent of the democratic deficit increases substantially with the length of time a given individual spent living in a communist regime, even after controlling for a citizen's age. The data, therefore, strongly suggest that the legacy of living through communism contributed to anti-democratic attitudes in the post-communist period.

This introductory chapter addresses the question of why post-communist citizens are less supportive of democracy and markets, and more supportive of state-provided social welfare. The most intuitive answer to this question is that it is somehow a legacy of communism. However, as popular as it has become to attribute outcomes of interest in post-communist countries to “legacies,” and despite some recent theoretical efforts to conceptualize historical legacies more carefully, there is no clearly established theoretical or empirical blueprint for analyzing the effect of legacies on attitude. Accordingly, there are two more theoretically precise potential answers to the question of “why”: it may be because of the experience of living through communism; or it may be because of the experience of living in a post-communist country.

This chapter explores attitudes toward gender equality as the fourth issue area for assessing the effect of communist legacies. The baseline finding from initial examinations of the raw data, the bivariate analyses, and all living in a post-communist country analysis was somewhat surprising: not only were the study unable to find any evidence of a “pro-gender equality” attitudinal differential in post-communist countries, but it quite often found exactly the opposite. To the extent that post-communist citizens held different attitudes toward gender equality from those of citizens elsewhere, they were likely to be less, not more, supportive of gender equality. This was particularly the case when controlling for historical effects, economic conditions, socioeconomic development patterns, and the fact that communism featured rule by left-wing governments. At the same time, however, the study did find some evidence that the effect of communist education may have played a role in inculcating pro-gender equality views in line with communist rhetoric.

This concluding chapter analyzes the results of this book's study, addressing what is suggested both for one's understanding of post-communist politics and for the study of legacy effects more generally. The major finding of this study is that there is much stronger empirical support for the living through communism model than for the living in a post-communist country model. Thus, to the extent that communist legacies have shaped attitudes in post-communist countries, it is more through the experiences of the people who live through communism than it is through reshaping the society in which those people are currently living. This suggests that the length of time a regime has been in power is an important determinant of the legacy effects that regime will have on the attitudes of its citizenry once the regime itself is gone.

This chapter examines the mechanisms underlying the greater support for an active welfare state among residents of post-communist countries. The analysis found very strong evidence that additional years of exposure to communist rule were correlated with greater support for state responsibility for social welfare. Moreover, and in line with the findings from the preceding two chapters, this chapter also shows that adult communist exposure has a greater impact on welfare state attitudes than childhood exposure. However, unlike in the previous two chapters, it appears that the attitudinal imprint of communism affects not only individuals with long personal exposures to communism but also post-communist citizens with very limited personal exposures to communist regimes and welfare states.

This chapter looks at the complex situation in post-communist Europe, where the transition from a command economy to a neoliberal system has created new forms of exclusion, with rudimentary or conservative welfare regimes that have great difficulty in providing social coverage for every citizen. Post-communist countries have different degrees of familism and different degrees of civil society activism. Both Croatia and Poland—with their dominant Catholic churches and welfare charities—are somewhat similar to Italy, while Romania—with its dominant Orthodox Church—shares some similarities with Greece, but with a weaker social and religious organisation. In Latvia, there are Lutheran, Catholic and Orthodox churches that are related to different ethnic and language groups. In all post-communist cases, religious minorities are more or less welcomed, but their welfare activities are mostly directed towards their own members. This is exemplified by the neo-Protestant minorities in Poland and Romania that have developed extensive social assistance networks.

Political scientists have conventionally distinguished between advanced liberal democracies; communist and post-communist states, and so-called third-world countries. Though used less frequently than was once the case, the groups or ones like them are distinguished because drawing general conclusions about the nature of political life requires being able to categorise in order to compare countries; and because, broadly speaking, the groups mark broad distinctions tending to correlate with a range of variables including political corruption. Placing, then, the liberal democracies of Western Europe in one category and the former communist countries of Europe, plus Russia, in another reveals that corruption is a larger problem in the latter part of the world than it is in the former. Against this background, the chapter looks at the historical context of corruption during the communist era. It then provides an overview of the extent of corruption in the post-communist era and of the variations in its extent between the states concerned –before explaining the distinctive reasons for the development of these levels of corruption, assessing their impact and looking at what is being done and needs to be done to reduce levels of corruption.

The concept of the welfare state has its roots in Europe. For that reason one would expect to find in Europe an advanced, ongoing discourse on social policy. But the ambitions of the growing region to become an important economic force in the world might have delayed the social dimension in the European agenda. There are ambitions of a common European social policy, but the convergence efforts seem to meet resistance from national welfare states that may have sociocultural traditions to defend. This chapter shows that the social dimension came rather late to the European agenda, and it has so far been subordinated to economic issues. Social policy has showed deviating development in various parts of Europe, especially pronounced when comparing the Nordic region with southern countries and the former Communist countries in transition.

This chapter examines the global influence of the Russian, Chinese, and Cuban new men. The first is the similar efforts in remaking people in the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba. The second is the admiration of the communist new man by some Westerners who became alienated from their own societies and sought alternative social systems. The third is the favorable perceptions of the communist new man by some Third World leaders, who were seeking ideas and methods for developing their own countries and for nation building despite many obstacles, and were inspired by the alleged selflessness and sacrifice of people in communist countries.

This chapter explores the factors that shaped patterns of economic protest across 18 European post-communist countries during the Great Recession. It explains how the Great Recession altered the level and nature of economic protest in the region and why patterns of protest varied considerably across countries. Strikes and ethnic protests decreased overall. Economic protests increased as a percentage of total protests but focused mostly on austerity and cutbacks rather than poor performance.

This chapter sums up and interprets findings on life courses during the transformation of East Germany from an independent state and communist regime to a part of West Germany, under the leitmotif of “unusual turbulences—unexpected continuities.” The first section examines the life-course dynamics and the second takes a closer look at differences between various social groups, assessing the outcomes in terms of winners and losers. The third section evaluates the respects in which assets and experiences accumulated by the former citizens of the GDR before 1989 were a resource or a burden during the transformation. The fourth section explores whether the abolishment of the GDR was a period that promoted and rewarded personal initiative and self-determination. Finally, the fifth section evaluates the overall outcome of the East German version of transformation in comparison to various benchmarks, including the “varieties of transition” in other post-communist countries.

How is workplace consent created in authoritarian countries that limit participation rights, not only in the political sphere, but also in the workplace? Although authoritarian countries make up a large proportion of the states in existence today, there are few comparative studies of work in authoritarian societies. This introduction presents the study’s main questions and research design as well as the theories, methods, and data used in the analysis. It introduces the concept of consent and discusses the particularities of consent generation in authoritarian societies and workplaces. It compares Russia and China as the world’s two biggest authoritarian countries and reviews their similarities—mainly their shared post-communist past—and differences regarding labor regulation and socioeconomic development.

Myra Sidharta was born in Belitung, Indonesia. Her grandfather was a prominent figure in Belitung. Myra explains that the majority of the Chinese in Indonesia trace their roots to Fujian province in southeast China. She narrates that in 1872 her grandfather's family was not rich and had to sell his youngest brother to obtain passage money overseas and leave some money for his mother, who was going to stay behind. When China became a Communist country, and Indonesia was declared independent, Myra's grandfather's family had to choose between Dutch or Indonesian citizenship. Myra discusses the many discriminatory rules experienced by ethnic Chinese of Indonesia in the 1950s, which caused many Chinese to decide to leave for China. She details her journey to Meixian and how being with her relatives in China brought her happiness.

This chapter examines the various reactions to the outcome of the Rivonia Trial. Most of white South Africa greeted the trial's outcome with approval and relief. There was little open regret that the defendants had not received the death penalty. Much of the South African press's reaction was directed at how the trial and its outcome were being portrayed in the rest of the world, whereas reaction abroad remained fully supportive of the defendants and their cause. There were demonstrations worldwide, including London, protesting the defendants' life sentences. The strongest reaction came from black Africa, communist countries, and left-leaning organizations.

This chapter reflects on the author's experience in Europe where, he reports, the revival of Jewish culture is engineered by non-Jews as well as Jews, and the author ponders the meaning of this co-construction. It draws on the ideas and notions of Henri Lefèbvre, Diana Pinto, Ruth Ellen Gruber, David Biale, and some others. Here, ‘Jewish space’ becomes a point of focus as a co-constructed field of cultural and political activity. This space is examined within the context of the post-World War II period — with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakdown of communism, with the peaceful manner in which these events had taken place, with the possibility of a peace accord in the Middle East, and with the beginning of a substantial immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union into Europe and especially Germany. This period heralded a new era for Europe, in which Jewish life and culture could take part. Not only would there be a heightened awareness of the Jewish contribution to European culture, but also a common endeavour to foster democracy and freedom in the post-communist countries of central and eastern Europe.