Social and Political Dimensions of Economic Transformation: Eastern Europe and Pacific Asia

The extent to which one experience of development can be seen as capable of providing a model for others is associated not merely with questions of formal policy, but with the historical, social and institutional contexts within which the various experiences arise. Consequently in this chapter we identify and discuss the significance of a number of processes and institutional arenas through which the political economies of Eastern Europe and Pacific Asia can be compared. At the territorial level our focus is not these regions in their entirety. Rather our concerns are with the smaller economies of East-Central Europe — essentially the Visegrad group (Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics and Hungary) — on the one hand, and the newly industrialized countries of Pacific Asia — particularly South Korea and Taiwan — on the other. The chapter consists of an identification of five arenas in which the East-Central European societies appear, at first sight, to be similar to their East Asian counterparts. This is followed by a discussion of six other arenas in which there appear to be significant differences. Finally we assess the implications which these similarities and differences have for the mobilization of aspects of the East Asian experience in the interests of Eastern European development.