The state, transnationality, and the capitalist diversity

The main goal of the project is to provide a systematic, theoretically informed, and empirically grounded comparative understanding of the variety of developmental models in Eastern Europe and Central Asia with a particular emphasis on the role of the state and transnational influences. We ask the following principal research questions: 1) In which way can development trajectories be distinguished and classified in Eastern Europe and CIS drawing particularly on Bohle & Greskovits and the Regulation approach? The answer to that question is to be theoretically founded, and will in its empirical application on quantitative criteria, especially in regard to the economic development trajectory (like export/import rations, composition of exports etc) and on more qualitative analysis (especially in regard to analysis of the state). 2) What kinds of economic trajectories have emerged after `transition` in Eastern Europe and CIS and what are their developmental strengths and weaknesses? 3) How can we explain variety in economic and also social performance? 4) What is the role of the state in economic development? The project aims to fill a number of missing links in the literature. These include: 1) analysing actual economic effects of existing institutional frameworks, state forms, and strategies, 2) incorporating transnational influences into analysis, political and economic role of transnational companies and political-economic implication of different modes of financial internationalization in particular, 3) theorizing state forms and political regimes in Russia and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), including their links to domestic social and political structures, and natural-resource endowments, and forms of international economic integration, 4) filling in regional blind spots of contemporary political economic research on the regions, including understanding of political economic regimes in the republics of former Yugoslavia, and 5) drawing theoretical lessons from the comparison with comparable developmental stories in other world regions, including that of South America and Africa.