West and Eastern Europe: Economic Statecraft and Political Change

An expert on East European politics and economics analyzes and evaluates Western policies toward the new East European democracies as they struggle to build stable political orders and functioning market economies. He argues that the West must give higher priority to assisting the region and reorient its strategies so as to emphasize the political and administrative dimensions of economic reconstruction. He reviews the economic legacy of past Western policies and of Eastern Europe's previous dependency on the Soviet Union, and then examines in detail the changing East-West trade patterns, the prospect for Western investment and technology transfer, the questions of finance, debt, and foreign aid, and the dilemmas of market reform. Students, scholars, policy analysts, historians, and business people will find this fascinating reading. It is an excellent text for courses in U.S. foreign policy, comparative politics, international political economy, East European and Slavic studies, comparative economics, and international trade and finance.