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Addresses issues concerning attitudes towards the West, democracy, and the market. The first one is the extent of Western involvement and influence in the transformation as against internal and domestic forces. The second is the extent to which elite views of the West—and their commitment to transition—have persisted in the face of the transition experience itself, including the success or failure of the market and the integration of the post‐communist state in Western economic and military structures. The chapter concentrates on the stance taken by mass publics of Eastern Europe, and, in particular, on their attitudes towards key aspects of the transition and the ways in which these are linked with their views of Western involvement. The chapter advances three propositions: (1) democratization as an exit from communism made it highly likely that the economic correlate would be the market rather than state economic control; and vice versa; (2) the geographical location of the communist bloc and the nature of its political, strategic, and economic rivalries made it likely that this exit would entail a shift to the West; (3) those most in favour of transition and most opposed to the communist order were more likely to wish to be become part of the West and its democratic and market structures. The chapter addresses those arguments by testing six hypotheses using data of national probability samples of the populations of Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

The concluding chapter concentrates on the importance of institutions in the democratic consolidation of post‐communist Eastern Europe. The chapter is divided into four parts that address issues concerning the importance of institutions in this process. The first section describes the ways in which institutions can affect political life by changing the pattern of incentives for particular behaviour by political actors. The second part shows how constitutions influence national identity by defining state citizenship. The third section refers to the activity of constitution‐making and how this process has taken place in Eastern Europe. The fourth part discusses how constitutions in Eastern Europe are transforming the way political demands, claims, and arguments are made by political actors.

Post‐communist transition has two central elements: a move from central planning to market forces and a move from totalitarian to more democratic government. Because of the resulting economic, political, and social disruption, the reforming countries fail even more sharply than western countries to conform to the assumptions of the simple model described in Ch. 2. Information is highly imperfect, risk greater, and uncertainty pervasive. Two conclusions about the welfare state follow. Firstly, the role of the state is perhaps greater than in the advanced industrial countries. Secondly, – the subject of this chapter – the welfare state needs systematically to change to meet the needs of a market economy. The first part of the chapter establishes the simple analytics of transition. Subsequent sections parallel the rest of the book, discussing insurance issues, particularly in connection with labour‐market adjustment, the reform of pensions, and necessary changes in the education system.

In this chapter I explain the proximate drivers of Poland’s economic success since 1989. I divide the transition into the initial period of ‘shock therapy’ during 1989 1991 and then the second period of economic recovery after 1992. I discuss the ongoing debate on the pros and cons of ‘shock therapy’ versus a ‘gradual’ approach to post-communist transition. I use the example of Poland’s ‘shock therapy’ to analyze both approaches. I conclude that that the differences in actual policies were smaller than implied by the rhetoric of both sides of the debate. I then explain why Poland was more successful than other transition economies, and discuss whether Poland could have grown even faster. I argue that on the whole the Polish transition was almost ‘as good as it gets’. I draw the lessons learned and policy insights from Poland’s transition for other countries.

Chapter 2 traces the origins of the Central Asian states’ patrimonial political systems and the “local rules” that structure their interactions with outside powers. It explores the Soviet origins of Central Asia’s patrimonial political arrangements and their restructured role during the independence era, and surveys the varieties of authoritarianism across the region. Central Asia’s local rules lead governments to conflate external and internal threats in the name of preserving their regimes; use state resources for private gain; and act as brokers between external actors and local constituents. In the 1990s these practices were masked by the external assumption that the Central Asian states were in transition, while in the 2000 rulers became more brazen about their patrimonial imperatives.

In Eastern and Central Europe's post-Communist transition, property restitution played no small part in expanding the privatizing and re-privatizing of the economies of the countries involved in the transition. Since World War II ended, the notion of rectifying arbitrary injustices has been the subject of numerous debates especially since Communist hegemony was put to an end in 1989. Also, certain statutes in formerly socialist countries can be associated with various policies that advocated the implementation of property restitution measures. This chapter attempts to discuss how the principle of restitution does not only reflect forms of legitimacy, but also directs attention to issues of temporal and spatial responsibilities of the state particularly in Germany's New Bundesländer. The chapter also discusses how the Federal German State was also able to establish administrative procedures and structures to push through with the practice of property restitution.

Unlike the blanket criticisms or accolades transitional justice measures receive in the literature, we are confronted with the reality of divergent and contingent relationships between transitional justice measures like lustration, public disclosures, and truth commissions and political and social trust-building goals. These findings force us to reconsider policy recommendations associated with transitional justice programs both because of possibly contrary outcomes, and due to previously unconsidered temporal conditions. With respect to comparative democratization, this study demonstrated a potentially important democracy promotion effect from transitional justice measures meriting continued exploration. This retrospective of nearly twenty-five years of transitional justice in Central and Eastern Europe and parts of the former Soviet Union contributes to the growing body of knowledge on regional regime change, with special attention to how issues of complicity, trust building, and nostalgia constitute unique challenges faced by former communist countries.

In this chapter I assess the optimal way to measure countries’ economic performance and assert that changes in median income are a better measure than GDP. I also argue in favour of increased focus on measurement of well-being, quality of life, and happiness. I document Poland’s historically unprecedented success, increasing its income from around $10,300 in 1990 to almost $27,000 PPP in 2017, becoming the most successful economy in Europe and among its peers in the world. I claim that Poland’s economic success is unique because it was achieved despite the country’s lack of natural resources, low debt leverage, and a vibrant democracy. It is unique also because Poland’s growth was inclusive; it was the only democratic country in the post-Soviet camp in which 100 per cent of society increased their incomes faster than in the West. Higher incomes translated into the highest levels of well-being and happiness on record.

This chapter discusses how the recent changes in Polish constitutionalism should be seen against the background of post-communist transformations, after the fall of communism in 1989. It notes that the Round Table agreements of that year were a true constitutional set-up, and were marked by a bargain that enabled a peaceful transition. Bicameralism and semi-presidentialism have their roots in this original compromise. In contrast to many other post-communist states, the chapter shows how the process of constitution-making in Poland was drawn out. Until the Constitution of 1997, the country’s constitutional structure consisted of (1) the constitutional arrangements of the Round Table, (2) the ‘Small Constitution’, and (3) the case law of the reinvigorated Constitutional Tribunal. The process of constitution-making was as important as its outcome, and was marked by multiple compromises. The Constitution of 1997 is then described, with its special emphasis on semi-presidentialism, state-church relations, and a bill of rights containing ‘generous’ socio-economic rights. The first period of Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS)) rule, in 2005–7, was marked by various hostile acts against this constitutional structure, but with no attempts at institutional dismantlement. Between 2005 and 2015, and especially after 2010, a growing political polarization was displayed, consequently weakening the constitutional consensus.

Global data on foreign bank ownership shows that the advanced industrial and major emerging economies have low levels of foreign bank ownership—a clear rebuke to marketized bank–state ties. Among developing and smaller emerging economies, however, foreign bank ownership levels are significantly higher on average. The chapter explains the divergence, highlighting both perceived advantages of banking sector protectionism, as well as specific pressures brought to bear on weaker states that forced banking market opening in the context of crisis or transition. Mirroring global trends, West European protectionism juxtaposed against East Central European openness appeared to be a case of stronger states exploiting weaker ones. But the consequences were in fact more complicated. West European banking nationalism was a key source of the European debt and currency crisis and financial fragmentation. And while West Europeans were paying trillions to save their banks, East Europeans largely escaped those fiscal burdens.

The introduction serves as an executive summary of the book. It lays out the book’s main objectives, arguments, and the storyline. It describes the structure of the book. It explains what is original about the book and how it complements the existing literature.

This chapter seeks out the origins of conspiracism in the former Soviet Union. It critiques arguments that conspiracism in Russia (and in other successor parts of the Russian Empire) is best explained by the region’s troubled historical development. It argues that history does matter, not by preordaining a country’s fate, but by providing a set of reference points and tropes that can be invoked under certain circumstances. It then examines challenges the region’s leaders faced in more recent times that might trigger a conspiratorial interpretation, focusing on two major preoccupations: political control and sovereignty. The chapter closes with a narrative account of the 42 critical events sampled to compile the database of conspiracy claims, laying the groundwork for the next chapter.