Capitalism From Outside? : Economic Cultures in Eastern Europe After 1989

Does capitalism emerging in Eastern Europe need as solid ethnic or spiritual foundations as some other "Great Transformations" in the past? Apparently, one can become an actor of the new capitalist game without belonging to the German, Jewish, or, to take a timely example, Chinese minority. Nor does one have to go to a Protestant church every Sunday, repeat Confucian truisms when falling asleep, or study Adam Smith's teachings on the virtues of the market in a business course. He/she may just follow certain quasi-capitalist routines acquired during communism and import capitalist culture (more exactly, various capitalist cultures) in the form of down-to-earth cultural practices embedded in freshly borrowed economic and political institutions. Does capitalism come from outside? Why do then so many analysts talk about hybridization? This volume offers empirical insights into the current cultural history of the Eastern European economies in three fields: entrepreneurship, state governance and economic science. The chapters are based on large case studies prepared in the framework of an eight-country research project (funded by the European Commission, and directed jointly by the Center for Public Policy at the Central European University and the Institute for Human Sciences) on East-West cultural encounters in the ex-communist economies. Frontmatter List of Tables (page vii) About DIOSCURI (page ix) Prologue: Going beyond Homo Sovieticus (János Mátyás Kovács and Violetta Zentai, page 1) Part 1. Entrepreneurship: Smooth Hybridization? (page 15) Repatriate Entrepreneurship in Serbia. Business Culture within Hauzmajstor (Vesna Vučinić-Nešković, page 17) A Small Miracle without Foreign Investors. Villány Wine and Westernized Local Knowledge (Éva Kovács, page 35) From Local to International and Back. Privatizing Brewing Companies in Eastern Europe (Ildikó Erdei and Kamil Mareš, page 57) Reason, Charisma, and the Legacy of the Past. Czechs and Italians in Živnostenká Bank (Irena Kašparová, page 71) Managers as "Cultural Drivers": Raiffeisen Bank in Croatia (Drago Čengić, page 89) The Rise of a Banking Empire in Central and Eastern Europe. Raiffeisen International (Violetta Zentai, page 105) Part 2. State Governance: Unilateral Adjustment? (page 125) Transmitting Western Norms. The SAPARD Program in Eastern Europe (Katalin Kovács and Petya Kabakchieva, page 127) Cloning or Hybridization? SAPARD in Romania (Florian Niţu, page 149) Caring Mother and Demanding Father. Cultural Encounters in a Rural Development Program in Bulgaria (Haralan Alexandrov and Rafael Chichek, page 167) Becoming European: Hard Lessons from Serbia. The Topola Rural Development Program (Mladen Lazić, page 183) Part 3. Economic Knowledge: Does Anything Go? (page 201) Have Polish Economics Noticed New Institutionalism? (Jacek Kochanowicz, page 203) The Sinuous Path of New Institutional Economics in Bulgaria (Roumen Avramov, page 223) Soft Institutionalism: The Receoption of New Institutional Economics in Croatia (Vojmir Franičević, page 241) Institutionalism, the Economic Institutions of Capitalism, and the Romanian Economics Epistemic Community (Paul Dragoş Aligică and Horia Paul Terpe, page 263) Beyond Basic Instinct? On the Reception of New Institutional Economics in Eastern Europe (János Mátyás Kovács, page 281) Epilogue: Defining the Indefinable: East-West Cultural Encounters (János Mátyás Kovács and Violetta Zentai, page 311) List of Contributors (page 337) Index (page 339)

Does capitalism emerging in Eastern Europe need as solid ethnic or spiritual foundations as some other "Great Transformations" in the past? Apparently, one can become an actor of the new capitalist game without belonging to the German, Jewish, or, to take a timely example, Chinese minority. Nor does one have to go to a Protestant church every Sunday, repeat Confucian truisms when falling asleep, or study Adam Smith's teachings on the virtues of the market in a business course. He/she may just follow certain quasi-capitalist routines acquired during communism and import capitalist culture (more exactly, various capitalist cultures) in the form of down-to-earth cultural practices embedded in freshly borrowed economic and political institutions. Does capitalism come from outside? Why do then so many analysts talk about hybridization?This volume offers empirical insights into the current cultural history of the Eastern European economies in three fields: entrepreneurship, state governance and economic science. The chapters are based on large case studies prepared in the framework of an eight-country research project (funded by the European Commission, and directed jointly by the Center for Public Policy at the Central European University and the Institute for Human Sciences) on East-West cultural encounters in the ex-communist economies.