Petr Pavlínek - Böcker

Environmental Transitions is a detailed and comprehensive account of the environmental changes in Central and Eastern Europe, both under state socialism and during the period of transition to capitalism. The change in politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s allowed an opportunity for a rapid environmental clean up, in an area once considered one of the most environmentally devastated regions on earth. The book illustrates how transformations after 1989 have brought major environmental improvements, as well as new environmental problems. It shows how environmental policy, economic change and popular support for environmental movements, have specific and changing geographies associated with them. Environmental Transitions addresses a large number of topics, including the historical geographical analysis of the environmental change, health impacts of environmental degradation, the role of environmental issues during the anti-communist revolutions, legislative reform and the effects of transition on environmental quality after 1989. Environmental Transitions contains detailed case studies from the region, which illustrate the complexity of environmental issues and their intimate relationship with political and economic realities. It gives theoretically informed ideas for understanding environmental change in the context of the political economy of state socialism and post-communist transformations, drawing on a wide body of literature from West, Central and Eastern Europe.

Environmental Transitions is a detailed and comprehensive account of the environmental changes in Central and Eastern Europe, both under state socialism and during the period of transition to capitalism. The change in politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s allowed an opportunity for a rapid environmental clean up, in an area once considered one of the most environmentally devastated regions on earth. The book illustrates how transformations after 1989 have brought major environmental improvements, as well as new environmental problems. It shows how environmental policy, economic change and popular support for environmental movements, have specific and changing geographies associated with them. Environmental Transitions addresses a large number of topics, including the historical geographical analysis of the environmental change, health impacts of environmental degradation, the role of environmental issues during the anti-communist revolutions, legislative reform and the effects of transition on environmental quality after 1989. Environmental Transitions contains detailed case studies from the region, which illustrate the complexity of environmental issues and their intimate relationship with political and economic realities. It gives theoretically informed ideas for understanding environmental change in the context of the political economy of state socialism and post-communist transformations, drawing on a wide body of literature from West, Central and Eastern Europe.

Drawing on the analytical approaches of global production networks, global value chains, and spatial divisions of labor, this book investigates the changing automotive industry in Europe. Petr Pavlínek is a leading scholar of the automotive industry and here he focuses on its restructuring and geographic reorganization since the early 1990s to analyze the driving forces and regional development effects of these changes. Pavlínek explains the spatial profit-seeking strategies of large automotive firms and their role in the restructuring and increasing internationalization of Europe's automotive industry through foreign direct investment. He also considers how rapid growth in eastern Europe has affected western Europe, evaluates the relative position of countries in the European automotive industry, and examines the transition to the production of electric vehicles in eastern Europe. Europe's Auto Industry features original data along with concepts and methods that may be applied in economic geography, economics, industrial sociology and development studies. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This book offers a critical analysis of recent developments in the automotive industry of East-Central Europe (ECE). Economists, industry specialists and national governments have considered the rapid development of the automotive industry in ECE in the past twenty years an unqualified success. This rapid growth has been based on large inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) from Western Europe, North America, Japan and South Korea, and it significantly contributed to GDP growth, created thousands of new jobs, and completely transformed the previously existing automotive industry in the region. This volume offers an analysis that goes beyond uncritical celebratory accounts of this rapid growth. It is based on original, detailed firm-level research conducted by the author in Czechia and Slovakia between 2009 and 2015 that covered assembly firms and the networks of component suppliers. Theoretically and conceptually, the analysis will draw on the globalproduction networks and global value chains perspectives. Drawing on the original empirical data and on additional available information, this volume concentrates on several important questions related to the development of the automotive industry in ECE in the 2000s:•The role of FDI in the rapid development of the automotive industry after 1990 and particularly in the 2000s.•The upgrading of the automotive industry in East-Central Europe through FDI• The position of ECE in the automotive industry research and development (R&D)•The effects of the 2008-2009 economic crisis in the automotive industry of ECE.•The role of state in the rapid development of the automotive industry in ECE in the 1990s and 2000s.•The effects of FDI on domestic firms in the form of linkages between foreign-owned and domestic firms and spillovers from foreign-owned to domestic firms.

This book offers a critical analysis of recent developments in the automotive industry of East-Central Europe (ECE). Economists, industry specialists and national governments have considered the rapid development of the automotive industry in ECE in the past twenty years an unqualified success. This rapid growth has been based on large inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) from Western Europe, North America, Japan and South Korea, and it significantly contributed to GDP growth, created thousands of new jobs, and completely transformed the previously existing automotive industry in the region. This volume offers an analysis that goes beyond uncritical celebratory accounts of this rapid growth. It is based on original, detailed firm-level research conducted by the author in Czechia and Slovakia between 2009 and 2015 that covered assembly firms and the networks of component suppliers. Theoretically and conceptually, the analysis will draw on the globalproduction networks and global value chains perspectives. Drawing on the original empirical data and on additional available information, this volume concentrates on several important questions related to the development of the automotive industry in ECE in the 2000s:•The role of FDI in the rapid development of the automotive industry after 1990 and particularly in the 2000s.•The upgrading of the automotive industry in East-Central Europe through FDI• The position of ECE in the automotive industry research and development (R&D)•The effects of the 2008-2009 economic crisis in the automotive industry of ECE.•The role of state in the rapid development of the automotive industry in ECE in the 1990s and 2000s.•The effects of FDI on domestic firms in the form of linkages between foreign-owned and domestic firms and spillovers from foreign-owned to domestic firms.

I started researching the dramatic changes in the automobile industry of Central and East European countries in the late 1990s. My interest grew out of my previous work on the post-socialist transformation, foreign - rect investment and regional economic development. While researching the economic and regional development effects of foreign direct inve- ment, I was increasingly drawn to the automobile industry because of the speed and depth of its transformation through foreign direct investment and its potentially very significant economic and regional development - fects. In addition to working on the Central and East European automobile industry as a whole, I became interested in detailed case studies of ent- prise restructuring as I wanted to understand its complex nature and the role of different actors in the restructuring of the automobile industry. In order to achieve this goal, I visited dozens of automotive enterprises, es- cially in the Czech Republic (Czechia) to conduct in-depths interviews with key informants. I have also interviewed key informants at ministries, automotive associations and academia and collected various secondary data and information. This book is the outcome of this work. In this endeavor I have benefited from various support. The University Committee on Research and Creative Activity at the University of Nebraska at Omaha funded three field work sessions in Czechia to conduct interviews and research for this book.