The Systemic Bed-Rock of Transition

Peter Lock
Additional contact information
Peter Lock: Department of Political Science, Free University of Berlin

Journal of Peace Research, 1994, vol. 31, issue 3, 351-357

Abstract: Social science in general and peace research in particular have developed only insufficient tools with which to analyse Soviet-type societies. The confusing diversity of regions and nation-states on the territory of the former Soviet Union requires a meticulous analysis of its foundations, as a free discourse has become possible. The Soviet economy and the behavioural marks it burdened its people with will codetermine the transition towards a market-oriented economy. It is therefore most welcome that a number of recent publications highlight the mechanisms and institutional arrangements, some of which will last for a long time. Jacques Sapir's approach interpreting the Soviet economy as a cyclical spiral of priority regulation, `l'économie mobilisée or permanente Kriegswirtschaft', is a powerful analytical instrument with which to capture the essence of the system. Unfortunately the successors of the old `Sovietology', the `big bang' consultants, have so far paid little attention to the historical strings attached to their subject. Returning to Gerschenkron's analysis of economic backwardness dramatically highlights the dangers of `ignoring the basic peculiarities' of Russia and the other republics of the former Soviet Union.

Date: 1994
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/31/3/351.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:joupea:v:31:y:1994:i:3:p:351-357

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Peace Research from Peace Research Institute Oslo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().