1. Introduction: Contextualizing post-communist transition. 2. Theorizing the international political economy of post-communist transition. 3. Towards passive revolution: The making of modern Eastern Central Europe. 4. The emergence of neoliberal social forces in the struggle for hegemony. 5. From shock therapy to Europeanization: Neoliberalization through depoliticization 6. Counter hegemonic social forces in post communist transition 7. Conclusion: Beyond transition? Beyond the transnational?
Biography
Stuart Shields teaches International Political Economy at the University of Manchester
This book is shortlisted for the 2013 BISA IPEG Book Prize
"This book is a must read for all those people interested to know why Poland is such a success story - a ‘rising star’ according to international financial media - in the current, crisis-ridden European Union. And why Poland, and other East Central European member states, may very well become next in line in the ongoing sovereign debt crisis." - Otto Holman, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
"With his careful historical-structural research, Shields responds in the best of possible ways to stylized transitology and IPE canons. Changing the world may be hard, but neo-Gramscians can most certainly interpret it." - Magnus Ryner, King’s College London, UK.
"Stuart Shields' new book provides an exemplary model of how to formulate and use a critical IPE approach to understanding significant contemporary developments. Although the subject of his book is the political economy of post-communist transition in central and eastern Europe, the context is the deep-seated transformations currently underway in the global political economy. His book is empirically rich and theoretically insightful. It takes the debate over the future of neoliberal forms of capitalism to a new level, and will be mandatory reading for all scholars interested in advancing a critical understanding of IPE." - Randall Gemain, Carleton University, Canada.
"Shields has provided a welcome and highly informative intervention in the debates on post-communist transition that has the potential to generate new avenues for critical political economy research by instigating an ambitious and much needed project of mapping out a multiplicity of case study contributions from the CEE region and beyond...this book is a contribution that transgresses disciplinary boundaries and will be of great appeal to those concerned with the themes of European political economy, international relations, area studies and sociology." - Jokubas Salyga, University of Nottingham, Europe-Asia Studies
