The Anglo-American Model of Economic Organization and Governance: Entropy and the Fragmentation of Social Solidarity in Twenty-first Century Latvia

Jeffrey Sommers

Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, 2009, vol. 17, issue 2, 127-142

Abstract: The collapse of Latvia's economy in 2009 and the protests that ensued raise fundamental questions about the results of the transition in Eastern Europe in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse. Explaining the significance of these events requires an analysis situating these developments into the global restructuring of the world-system that has occurred since the 1970s when the Bretton Woods Consensus and its model of accumulation and political organization broke down. This article endeavors to reveal insights about the recent unrest by embedding them within a broader political economy (both locally and globally) that articulates the connections between different regimes of accumulation and governance and their respective degrees of social solidarity. Additionally, this article ends by placing the recent demonstrations within three defined categories of protests in the modern era and their conjuncture with crisis of accumulation present since the 1970s. Lastly, this article posits that Latvia's transition economy and society risks ending the middle-class project introduced by the transatlantic revolutions two centuries back and that a recalibration of economic development policies is required to address its structural defects.

Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1080/09651560903172191

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