Baudrillard Goes to Kyiv: Institutional Simulacra in Transition

Christopher Hartwell

Journal of Economic and Social Thought, 2015, vol. 2, issue 2, 92-105

Abstract: The transition process in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union from 1989 onward has been focused on the reform of institutions in order to re-orient the economy. However, throughout the former Soviet space, “transition” has been merely a label for many countries, covering the reality of a fundamental lack of change in either political or economic institutions. Using the idea of simulacra and simulation, first posited by philosopher Jean Baudrillard in 1981, I show how institutional change in transition for some prominent “transition economies” has proceeded through stages in simulation. In particular, using examples from Central Asia and Ukraine, I examine how crucial institutions have changed from a perversion of reality into symbols that are divorced from any reality. Current events in Ukraine show that institutional simulacra can exposed when an exogenous reality forces its way through.

Keywords: Institutions; simulacra; transition; Ukraine. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B25 B52 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.kspjournals.org/index.php/JEST/article/download/282/430 (application/pdf)
http://www.kspjournals.org/index.php/JEST/article/view/282 (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:ksp:journ3:v:2:y:2015:i:2:p:92-105

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic and Social Thought is currently edited by Bilal KARGI

More articles in Journal of Economic and Social Thought from KSP Journals Istanbul, Turkey.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bilal KARGI ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).