Economics of transition: A review article

Milford Bateman et al., Business Cultures in Central & Eastern Europe. Oxford: Butterworth‐Heinemann, 1997, xxii + 238 pp., £18.99.

John L. Campbell & Ove K. Pedersen (eds), Legacies of Change, Transformations of Postcommunist European Economies. Berlin: Aldine De Gruyter, 1996, xii + 258 pp., DM48.00.

Mark Knell (ed.), Economics of Transition, Structural Adjustments and Growth Prospects in Eastern Europe. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1996, xii + 246 pp., £45.00.

Martin Myant et al., Successful Transformations? The Creation of Market Economies in Eastern Germany and the Czech Republic. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1996 xiii + 267 pp., £49.95.     

Ten years of transition: a review article

Ten years after the launching of the transition process, many books and reports are offering a balance sheet of the transformation that occurred in Central and Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union area. The review article looks at some of them, particularly at Grzegorz W. Kolodko's book published in 2000, “From Shock to Therapy. The Political Economy of Postsocialist Transformation”. On the basis of this book and of some recent contributions, three major issues are discussed. First, why has there been such a recession in the beginning of the transition process in all countries, and was the recession inevitable? Second, due to the dire criticisms of the standard policy applied in these countries, dubbed the “Washington consensus”, has a “post-Washington consensus” emerged? Third, as we are already engaged in the second decade of the transition process, can we state when it is bound to be over, and what role is played by the European Union enlargement in accelerating the end of transition?     

Stalin and the cold war: A review article

Caroline Kennedy‐Pipe, Stalin's Cold War: Soviet Strategies in Europe, 1943 to 1956. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, 218 pp., £40.00 h/b, £14.99 p/b.

R. C. Raack, Stalin's Drive to the West, 1938–1945: The Origins of the Cold War. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995, 265 pp., £35.00 h/b.     

Jobs and local action: A review article

A Working Community: A Report on the Role of a Local Authority in Creating Jobs, and the Problems of Reducing Unemployment, Southwark Borough Council, 1987, £2.50.

Manchester Employment Plan, City Council Economic Development Department, with Services to Community Action and Tenants, and the Manchester Employment Research Group Ltd, 1987, free.

Sheffield: Working it Out, An Outline Employment Plan for Sheffield, Sheffield City Council, 1987, free.

Real Needs ‐ Local Jobs, Parliamentary Spokesperson's Working Group (available from John Prescott MP, House of Common, London SW1A 0AA), 1987, £2.00.     

Beyond the Cold War in Europe: A review article

Vilho Harle & Jyrki Iivonen, ed., Gorbachev and Europe. Pinter Publishers, London, 1990, xi+213 pp., £28.50.

Richard Davy, ed., European Detente: A Reappraisal. The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Sage Publications, London, 1992, viii+277 pp., £35.00.

Richard H. Ullman, Securing Europe. Adamantine Press, Twickenham, 1991, xv+183 pp., £13.50.     

From Marxism to communism: A review article

James D. White, Karl Marx and the Intellectual Origins of Dialectical Materialism. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, xii + 416 pp., £40.00 h/b, £14.99 p/b.     

First Russian biographies of Trotsky: A review article

N. A. Vasetsky, Trotskii. Opyt politicheskoi biografii. Moscow: Respublika, 1992, 351 pp. D. Volkogonov, Trotskii. Politicheskii portret. II Vols. Moscow: Novosti, 1992, 412 & 412 pp.     

The Soviet ideology of industrialization : A review article

This paper studies reproductive behaviour (ideal family size, completed family size and family planning acceptance) in a rural Indian area which was rapidly industrialising. Two castes and eleven villages were sampled. It was found that family planning was quite common and that fertility differentials among couples were related to the couples’ unique socioeconomic characteristics as well as to two group level variables (caste and village). The latter result was shown to be statistically significant, for all three measures of reproductive behaviour, even after many unique socioeconomic characteristics and attitudes of each couple were accounted for statistically.     

On Soviet‐German relations: The debate continues—A review article

Aleksandr M. Nekrich, Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German‐Soviet Relations, 1922–1941. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997, xiv + 308 pp., £28.00.     

Science,technology, and public administration: the government-university nexus

The relations between governments and universities, particularly with respect to science and technology, is traced from the agricultural period and the land-grant era to the research and development era involving particularly the fields of medicine and defense, to the modern era which is lacking a coherent national policy.

Among the institutional relations that are critical to science, technology, and public administration, those involving government-university linkages stand out. In the past, there have been two major eras of government/university relations: the land-grant era and the federal mission agency era. More recently, a third era has emerged—what we call the new federalist era. The first period featured a decentralized institutional model focused on a single economic sector: agriculture. The second was characterized by a more centralized federally dominated approach. This third era is still evolving. Its primary ingredients include university ties with many segments of industry. And government includes that as well as federal agency roles.

During the land-grant era, dating from 1862, a large number of universities, devoted initially to problems of agriculture and the mechanical arts, were created. The era was characterized by a research system involving a federal agency, state government, universities, and an industry of individuals with little or no research capability. It was a highly decentralized system, responsive to multiple needs throughout the country, with a heavy emphasis on technology transfer. It gave the initial impetus to the university in fashioning an applied role. Whatever else may be said about this system—good or bad—it certainly made the American agricultural industry more productive.

In the federal mission agency era, dating from World War II, federal agencies spent vast sums to pursue national goals in defense, space, energy, and other fields by creating programs supporting universities. On the expectation there would eventually be practical payoffs, federal agencies supported basic research largely on the universities’ terms. States were not involved in any significant degree. Industry was, of course, very much a part of this system, but in the case of defense and space, it was primarily as developers of technology for government rather than users of technology for civilian goals.

This system worked unevenly. The greatest continuity was the Department of Defense (DOD) as a sponsor of research and development, including research in universities. That is what was seen as a problem in the era of Vietnam. For many critics, it is a problem today, with Star Wars merely the most dramatic example of a too close university involvement with DOD.

There were discontinuities in most of the areas of federal mission agency support. At the time of Minnowbrook I, the desire was to redeploy science and technology to other mission areas that would improve the human condition. The process was difficult, as various domestic agencies had problems establishing and maintaining relations with science and technology. In the 1980s, most of the civilian programs were cut back and the energy program was slated to be eliminated altogether.

Today, the United States research system, and thus the government-university partnership, is in a new-federalist era of science and technology. Here, the federal government, state governments, industry, and universities cooperate and collide as each tries to make the most of several new technologies now emerging with a perceived high economic potential. Meanwhile, the university-DOD relationship has been rebuilt after a decade of rupture. In an environment of increasing global competition, the old institutional models are giving way to novel arrangements.

What has happened is that a new mission—a new problem or opportunity—has become more salient in the 1980s. This is the mission of economic development and competitiveness. Economic competitiveness is a broad and diffuse mission. The juxtaposition of this mission with science and technology is because a good part of this competition is expected to be waged on the frontier of new technology. Japan, in particular, has made technological leadership in the cluster of fields cited above a national imperative, and other nations are following suit.⁽¹⁾

No federal mission agency is clearly identified with, much less in charge of, a mission. Indeed, the mission has not been officially proclaimed but exists only as a rallying cry. The question to be resolved is whether the present scattered response is enough, or if a more comprehensive national policy should be established. If established, should a new federal mission agency be set in motion to lead the assault—perhaps one modeled after the Japanese MITI? If so, how would it relate to the other players? Given the role of the states in particular, it would seem that a cooperative model drawing on federal and state resources might be designed.     

Foreign direct investment and technology capabilities in the developing countries: a review

Economically developing countries are facing the very difficult problems of mastering the skills involved in newly emerging science-intensive industries. To improve technological capabilities, they must expend resources to establish themselves in industries that are technologically mature. Transfer of knowledge is the crux of the direct investment, so in this context transfer of technology (ToT) plays a vital role in the economic and technological development. So, the wide spread discussion of “economic globalization” has involved an important debate on the role of technology in “economic globalization” and economic growth. Much of that debates has concentrated of corporate behaviour within the developed countries but transfer of technology (ToT) combines the development of indiginous technological capabilities also. At the same time, organizational skills, procedure, and assumptions within the globalization of technology need to be adapted to fit the new technology in the developing countries. Thus this paper try to explain the story of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the economic growth and development of technology through technological capabilities that provides for an increasingly intense end of domestic competition. The paper also analysis and review the effect of access to technology and level of competition, on the level of technological capabilities by inference a strategy for the success acquisition of technology in developing countries.