Capitalism from Outside?
Economic Cultures in Eastern Europe after 1989

Edited by Violetta Zentai, Central European University, Budapest
János Mátyás Kovács, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna

Studies by economists, historians, sociologists and anthropologists on transnational encounters in the economic cultures in post-communist Eastern Europe. It concentrates on smaller and bigger firms in the new market conditions, governmental bodies that shaped economic policies and regulations, and the academic settings of economic science. Comparative studies are offered in three areas: entrepreneurship, governance of economic change, and economic knowledge. Case studies analyze country specific issues. The encounters between the economic actors of the “East” and the “West” – which have dramatically increased during the past two decades – are scrutinized. Chapters reveal how indigenous actors – workers, entrepreneurs, government officials, economists, think tank analysts etc. – in Eastern Europe, select (accept, adjust and mix) certain cultural packages while rejecting others. Although cultural exchanges are rarely symmetric, there is little to prove that “strong Western” culture devours (civilizes) the “weak Eastern” one, or “clashes of civilizations” drive capitalist transformations in the region.

Contents

List of Tables; Prologue: Going beyond Homo Sovieticus, János Mátyás Kovács and Violetta Zentai; Part 1. Entrepreneurship: smooth hybridization? Repatriate Entrepreneurship in Serbia. Business Culture within Hauzmajstor, Vesna Vučinić-Nešković; A Small Miracle without Foreign Investors.Villány Wine and Westernized Local Knowledge, Éva Kovács; From Local to International and Back. Privatizing Brewing Companies in Eastern Europe, Ildikó Erdei and Kamil Mareš; Reason, Charisma, and the Legacy of the Past. Czechs and Italians in Živnostenská Bank, Irena Kašparová; Managers as “Cultural Drivers”: Raiffeisen Bank in Croatia, Drago Čengić; The Rise of a Banking Empire in Central and Eastern Europe. Raiffeisen International, Violetta Zentai Part 2. State governance: unilateral adjustment? Transmitting Western Norms. The SAPARD Program in Eastern Europe, Katalin Kovács and Petya Kabakchieva; Cloning or Hybridization? SAPARD in Romania, Florian Niţu; Caring Mother and Demanding Father. Cultural Encounters in a Rural Development Program in Bulgaria, Haralan Alexandrov and Rafael Chichek; Becoming European: Hard Lessons from Serbia. The Topola Rural Development Program, Mladen Lazić; Part 3. Economic knowledge: does anything go? Have Polish Economists Noticed New Institutionalism? Jacek Kochanowicz; The Sinuous Path of New Institutional Economics in Bulgaria, Roumen Avramov; Soft Institutionalism: The Reception of New Institutional Economics in Croatia, Vojmir Franičević; Institutionalism, the Economic Institutions of Capitalism, and the Romanian Economics Epistemic Community, Dragoş Paul Aligică and Horia Paul Terpe; Beyond Basic Instinct?On the Reception of New Institutional Economics in Eastern Europe, János Mátyás Kovács; Epilogue: Defining the indefinable: East-West cultural encounters, János Mátyás KovácsandVioletta Zentai; List of Contributors; Index

forthcoming in 2012
320 pages, 8 tables
978-615-5211-33-1 cloth $55.00 / €50.00 / £45.00