Besnik Pula

The post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe have gone from being among the world's most closed, autarkic economies to being some of the most export-oriented and globally integrated. While previous accounts have attributed this shift to post-1989 market reform policies, Besnik Pula sees the root causes differently. Reaching deeper into the region's history and comparatively examining its long-run industrial development, he locates critical junctures that forced the hands of Central and Eastern European elites and made them look at options beyond the domestic economy and the socialist bloc.

In the 1970s, Central and Eastern European socialist leaders intensified engagements with the capitalist West in order to expand access to markets, technology, and capital. This shift began to challenge the Stalinist developmental model in favor of exports and transnational integration. A new reliance on exports launched the integration of Eastern European industry into value chains that cut across the East-West political divide. After 1989, these chains proved to be critical gateways to foreign direct investment and circuits of global capitalism. This book enriches our understanding of a regional shift that began well before the fall of the wall, while also explaining the distinct international roles that Central and Eastern European states have assumed in the globalized twenty-first century.

What are social objects and what makes them different from other realms of scientifically studied reality? How can sociology theoretically account for the relationship between objects of social reality such as norms and social structures, and their existence as objects of experience for living human actors? Contemporary sociology is characterized by a fundamental dissensus with regard to this question. Ironically, this is the very problem Alfred Schutz tackled in his phenomenological critique of Max Weber’s sociological theory. As Schutz demonstrated nearly a century ago, phenomenology’s egological method is indispensable to a non-reductionist theory of intersubjectivity, namely, one that does full justice to embodied conscious life while demonstrating the relative independence of the intersubjective (social) sphere. In the process, Schutz’s mundane phenomenology results not only in a thorough rejection of all kinds of philosophical solipsism but also warns of the dangers, one that Husserl himself succumbed to, of granting collective structures transcendental status. Through a critical reading of Schutz’s early theory in the Phenomenology of the Social World, alongside key texts by Husserl, this paper shows the continued relevance of Schutz’s phenomenological theory of intersubjectivity to serve both as ontological grounding of “the social” and a method for investigating and describing concrete social objects in their transformation into theoretico-analytical objects amenable to empirical observation.

Reed's Power in Modernity is an ambitious work in social theory aiming to propose a novel cultural theory of modern power. As the subtitle suggests, the book's inspiration draws from very disparate traditions: the problem of agency relations (most prominent in rational choice theory), performativity, and the study of political theology in Ernst Kantorowicz's classic work, The King's Two Bodies. The connections built between these traditions enable Reed to develop a novel interpretation of power relations in modernity. An important medium by which Reed arrives at the dialogue between agency relations and political theology is the work of Julia Adams. Adams' work on patrimonialism and agency relations in the context of colonial empire is lauded by Reed as "the definitive breakthrough in the social theory of agency." For Reed, Adams accomplishes this by "wrest[ing] [agency relations] from formalist social theory and rational choice models of the world a kernel of insight, while shedding their ideological shell" (41). The insight allows a conception of agency relations beyond the rational practicalities and utilitarian functions of rational choice theory, by taking as equally constitutive and problematic to such relations their representational dimension. Specifically, Adams shows "how changes in the representation of agency relations could change the relations themselves" (42-3, emphasis in original). This provides Reed the conceptual bridge towards his own expanded configuration of agency relations. These consist of a "principal" rechristened as rector, an actor, and an other. Reed expends great effort in the chapter on agency relations to argue how both the social and cultural "glue" that binds actor to rector, and the coordination problems between rector and actor valorized by standard agency relations theory, result not only from divergent preferences and incongruent utilitarian calculi, but also (and chiefly) from the crisis of representation of those relations with regard to their symbolic meaning and their attribution and recognition of authorship. Put differently, the effectiveness of agency relations in constituting nodes of concentrated political power inheres in the fact that they exist as combinations of both "logistics and semiosis" (45). Agency relations thus embody a paradox: while constitutive of power in the organizational sense, they simultaneously embody the ambiguities of domination in the relational sense.

Phenomenology has played an important role the development of sociological theory. While modern phenomenology’s origins lie in the seminal work of Edmund Husserl, the perspective has however never operated as a unified school or system of thought. This article reviews three major traditions of phenomenology: phenomenology as existential philosophy, phenomenology as hermeneutics of being, and social phenomenology. It contrasts the largely extraneous influence of the first two phenomenological traditions on social theorizing with the more intrinsic relationship between social phenomenology and the development of sociological theory in the United States. Then, the article discusses the latter relationship in the context of the intellectual role of the transmitter of the social phenomenological tradition to the United States, Alfred Schutz. In spite of its historical importance, in contemporary social theory phenomenology is described at best as marginal and at worst as irrelevant and outdated. The article highlights the costs of phenomenology’s exclusion by engaging in a counter-reading of Schutz against canonical representations of his work. There is a continued relevance for social phenomenology to social and cultural theorizing that grounds its objects in the phenomenal and reflexive encounter with the lifeworld.

Historical Sociology (HS) is a subfield of sociology studying the structures and processes that have shaped important features of the modern world, including the development of the rational bureaucratic state, the emergence of capitalism, international institutions and trade, transnational forces, revolutions, and warfare. HS differs from other approaches in sociology given its distinction between routine social activities and transformative moments that fundamentally reshape social structures and institutions. Within international relations, the relevance of history in the field’s study has been highly disputed. In fact, mainstream international relations (IR)—Neorealism and Liberalism—has downplayed the importance of history. Nevertheless, World History (WH) and HS have exercised a significant degree of influence over certain theoretical approaches to the study of international relations. The history of HS can be traced back to the Enlightenment period and the belief that it was p...

This paper examines the varied ways in which the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and the eurozone crisis affected the economies of the Balkan “super-periphery”. This paper shows that economic shocks are transmitted differently based on how globalised or dependent the mode of integration of each Balkan state is with the wider European political economy. This paper finds export-dependent and investment-dependent states to have suffered the most as a result of the crisis, while remittance-dependent states such as Kosovo have suffered the impact of secondary consequences of global crisis such as rising global food prices.

Defying predictions of radical liberalization, labour market institutions in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe are characterized by relatively protective employment legislation, sometimes combined with collective bargaining rights. However, not all protective employment regimes survived political attack by neoliberal reformers. Existing theories in comparative political economy suggest that employment regimes reflect the relative political power of producer groups. Others have suggested that in Central and Eastern Europe the content of labour market reform was determined by the coercive influence of transnational actors. Through a comparative analysis of labour market reform in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia, this article finds that trade unions played a key role in early institutional settlements over labour markets. However, in Romania and Slovakia, these institutional settlements were subsequently undermined by attacks by ideologically motivated domestic e...

Social Structures of Accumulation (SSA) theory has made few inroads in developing accounts of social, economic, and institutional transformation in Eastern Europe since the systemic collapse of state socialism in the region. There have been no significant efforts to apply theoretical insights from SSA theory to the study of the constitution and transformation of Eastern European capitalism since the historic demise of the Soviet-led economic bloc in 1989-91. This chapter argues that SSA theory has much to offer towards a critical understanding of the social and political dynamics of East European capitalism, particularly in the intersection between domestic class interests, heightened processes of neoliberal globalization in the 1990s and 2000s, and the key episodes of economic contraction and expansion experienced by East European economies through three decades of capitalist development.

Comparative and case study researchers have responded to critiques of their methods by developing formal procedures to validate theoretical claims through set theoretical logics of causal conditions. This ‘logico-formalist turn’ has involved the stricter application of the schemas of set theory and the philosophy of logic to raise validation standards of theoretical and causal claims in comparative historical research. This paper critiques these solutions from a critical realist standpoint. It argues that the cost of such a defense has been the retention of positivist assumptions of causal inference and the downplaying of the importance of interpretive and theory-building work in comparative and case study research. By contrast, critical realism’s process of retroduction sees causal analysis not as proceeding inductively from empirical observation to causal proposition, but rather points out the constant epistemic shift from the level of empirical observation to that of the theoretical description of intransitive causal powers. The paper highlights the ways in which the meta-theoretical perspective of critical realism makes possible a full break with both positivism and the implicit empiricism of the logico-formalist turn.

The prevailing transitions literature suggests that dynamic firms in postsocialist economies are the result of macroinstitutional reforms leading to the making of markets. This article builds on work in comparative political economy and economic sociology to show that the degree of competitive behaviour of postsocialist firms is determined not by the existence of general market institutions alone but by the kinds of organisational allies firms possess and the kinds of markets they compete in. Using firm survey data across 28 postsocialist economies, the article examines the determinants of competitive restructuring by firms, including product innovation, standards upgrade, financial transparency, and investments in research and development. The article confirms insights from comparative political economy which suggest that dynamic enterprise sectors emerge when governance is effective. However, at the firm level, the article finds that transnational ties and supportive policy environments are most significant in the making of dynamic postsocialist enterprises. The article also highlights important regional variation in firm behaviour and discusses the relationship between institutional frameworks, organisational embeddedness, and firm restructuring in postsocialist economies.

After widespread privatization in the 1990s, the early 2000s witnessed the reemergence and consolidation of state owned industries in the postsocialist states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). To counter views that state owned industries have largely disappeared from postsocialist CEE due to extensive privatization, the paper demonstrates the continued economic significance of state owned industries across the region. The paper then offers a typology of state-firm relations and highlights differences in empirical cases of large state-owned firms that have emerged in the region, distinguishing between market-oriented and politicized firms. Finally, the paper develops a comparative, macro-level processual analysis accounting for the institutional and political factors that explain why some postsocialist states have developed state-owned industries that operate successfully in competitive markets while others have developed highly politicized state-controlled firm. It finds that political factors are what chiefly account for the emergence of successful state sectors in the region.

This paper is a draft version of the theoretical elaboration for a comparative analysis of social structures of accumulation (SSA) developed out of a critical engagement with the tradition of SSA theory and the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) approach. The discussion is drawn out of the manuscript on the rise of transnational capitalism in the postsocialist economies of Central and Eastern Europe. Comments are welcome.

Through an historical analysis of the transnational practices of economists during the Cold War, Johanna Bockman rejects the narrative that the revolutions of 1989 represented the victory of ‘Western economics’, and especially neoliberalism, over ‘East-European socialism’. Rather, Bockman shows that the space of exchange, as well as policy experimentation in socialist states such as Yugoslavia and Hungary, led to the articulation of alternative, decentralised, ‘market socialisms’ from the 1950s up until the 1980s. Instead of operating within separate and incommensurable paradigms of ‘capitalist’ and ‘socialist’ economics, Bockman shows how neoclassical theory and its long tradition of comparing distinct economic systems became the central episteme allowing for the transnational exchange of ideas between economists of both the East and the West. This review-essay evaluates the book’s central claims but argues that the book stands on weaker ground when arguing that a reformed socialism was a viable option in Eastern Europe after 1989.

This paper examines the varied ways in which the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and the eurozone crisis affected the economies of the Balkan “super-periphery”. This paper shows that economic shocks are transmitted differently based on how globalised or dependent the mode of integration of each Balkan state is with the wider European political economy. This paper finds export-dependent and investment-dependent states to have suffered the most as a result of the crisis, while remittance-dependent states such as Kosovo have suffered the impact of secondary consequences of global crisis such as rising global food prices.

Why do some states fail to establish the capacity of legal regulation among significant sections of their population, and instead allow alternative norms of social order to take the place of those promoted by the state? Existing models of state building in the sociological literature treat the building of modern bureaucratic authority as a political process in which weak state authority results from a state's inability to defeat rival bases of power. On the other hand, neo-institutionalist theory highlights the significant effects that institutional environments have on organization building, but its elaborations of state building have mainly emphasized processes of the diffusion of world society models as central to the making of the modern nation-state. Both models fail to explain how limitations in new states' capacities to govern populations emerge in cases when states fulfill conditions specified by each model. I use the case of state building in the Albanian highlands to show that jurisdictional struggles and resistance that emerge out of distinct cultures of legality are key to understanding why organizationally capable states may fail to establish durable mechanisms of governance among marginal social groups.

An invited panel sponsored by the Comparative-Historical Section at the 2019 ASA Annual Meeting addressed the possibility of meaningfully talking about a global authoritarian turn in contemporary politics. Organized by Marco Garrido (University of Chicago) and chaired by Anna Skarpelis (Harvard University), the panel featured an interdisciplinary cast spanning
anthropology, political science, and public administration in addition to sociology. The presentations by Garrido, Barış Büyükokutan (Koç University), Benjamin Merriman (University of Kansas), Gregory Duff Morton (Bard College) and Besnik Pula (Virginia Tech) discussed contemporary politics in the Philippines, Turkey, the United States, Brazil, and Eastern Europe respectively. Taken together, the presentations challenged a one-size-fits-all
approach to developments that the presenters found quite distinct.