Centre for the Study of Economic and Social Change in Europe, SSEES, UCL
Abstract
The paper examines state characteristics and their policy implications in five Central European post-communist countries. It argues that policies on macroeconomic stabilisation, privatisation and FDI had been shaped by state-society relations, which, in turn, had been affected by policy outcomes. Curiously, though, whereas structural and institutional developments exhibited a great deal of path-dependency in some countries, in others significant policy shifts took place. The conceptual tools of state capacity and autonomy are used to describe both dynamics, as well as to explain the spectacular variation in the role of FDI across the region
