Transition Economies: Political Economy in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia

“The book’s strongest feature lies in its political economy approach to transformation in the countries of Central East Europe and the former USSR…  Given the highly up-to-date information and statistics that this book provides, I find it to be an equally useful resource for researchers, graduate students and libraries.”

—Anca M. Voicu, Rollins College

“The authors have managed to include the entire, very diverse region of Eastern Europe and the CIS in their analysis. They have done it by using pre-defined categories, but also coming up with their own way of classifying and ranking these countries… The timeliness of their analysis, attempting to classify the transition economies also in terms of how they are coping with the [2008-09 financial] crisis, gives the book extra value.”

—Carolyn Ann Kadas, University of Bologna

“The text… combines theory-led reasoning with empirical data in an excellent way. The authors highlight the limits of the Varieties of Capitalism approach in explaining the development trajectories in Eastern Europe and the CIS countries and provide convincing alternative explanations. Their critique of the Washington Consensus policies is well argued and supported by empirical data.”

—Joachim Becker, University of Vienna

“The clarity and good organization of the chapters, as well as the simplicity and clearness of the language and analysis make this book attractive both to the lecturer and his/her audience…. I was most impressed with the coverage of topics; this is exactly the set of material that I teach and that would most definitely be unique and a great contribution... I think this would be an excellent text for my class.”

—Mitchell Orenstein, Johns Hopkins University

“Instead of focusing on the 1990s where most of transition took place intensively, the authors take a much longer horizon by linking the transition experience in the 1990s with the most recent developments such as the world financial crisis of 2008. In doing so, the authors provide a highly updated text on economic transition.”

—Julan Du, City University of Hong Kong