Capitalism from Outside?

Violetta Zentai is Director at the Center for Policy Studies, Central European University.János Mátyás Kovács is Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna; Lecturer at the Department of Economics, Loránd Eötvös University, Budapest; External Research Fellow at the Institute of Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

"The impressive international team of contributors has done a good job. The case studies on the introduction of western banking institutions and culture to various eastern European countries, entrepreneurship, privatization of brewing, transmittal and absorption of western norms, and the adjustment of eastern economics to modern western trends are all highly interesting and convincing on the topic of the 'hybridization' process. As the editors sum up in the prologue, 'the nascent capitalism in the region is much less driven from outside, and its local actors are much more active and inventive' than generally thought. Although cultural exchange was often asymmetric, the authors think that it would be a grave simplifi cation to talk about a ‘strong Western’ culture that devours the ‘weak Eastern’ culture'."

• List of Tables About DIOSCURI Prologue: Going beyond Homo Sovieticus János Mátyás Kovács and Violetta Zentai Part 1. Entrepreneurship: Smooth Hybridization? Repatriate Entrepreneurship in Serbia. Business Culture within Hauzmajstor Vesna Vucinic-Neškovic A Small Miracle without Foreign Investors. Villány Wine and Westernized Local Knowledge Éva Kovács From Local to International and Back. Privatizing Brewing Companies in Eastern Europe Ildikó Erdei and Kamil Mareš Reason, Charisma, and the Legacy of the Past. Czechs and Italians in Živnostenská Bank Irena Kašparová Managers as “Cultural Drivers”: Raiffeisen Bank in Croatia Drago Cengic The Rise of a Banking Empire in Central and Eastern Europe, Raiffeisen International Violetta Zentai Part 2. State Governance: Unilateral Adjustment? Transmitting Western Norms. The SAPARD Program in Eastern Europe Katalin Kovács and Petya Kabakchieva Cloning or Hybridization? SAPARD in Romania Florian Nitu Caring Mother and Demanding Father. Cultural Encounters in a Rural Development Program in Bulgaria Haralan Alexandrov and Rafael Chichek Becoming European: Hard Lessons from Serbia. The Topola Rural Development Program Mladen Lazic Part 3. Economic Knowledge: Does Anything Go? Have Polish Economists Noticed New Institutionalism? Jacek Kochanowicz The Sinuous Path of New Institutional Economics in Bulgaria Roumen Avramov Soft Institutionalism: The Reception of New Institutional Economics in Croatia Vojmir Franicevic Institutionalism, the Economic Institutions of Capitalism, and the Romanian Economics Epistemic Community Paul Dragos Aligica and Horia Paul Terpe Beyond Basic Instinct? On the Reception of New Institutional Economics in Eastern Europe János Mátyás Kovács Epilogue: Defining the Indefinable: East–West Cultural Encounters János Mátyás Kovács and Violetta Zentai List of Contributors Index