Contrasting Responses to the International Economic Crisis of 2008–10 in the 11 CIS Countries and in the 10 Post-Communist EU Member Countries

Abstract

Far from being uniform and amenable to broad generalizations, the consequences of the international economic crisis of 2008–10 for the post-communist states have been strikingly diverse, and the policy responses of these countries to those crises have been correspondingly varied. The 11 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, and the 10 post-communist states admitted into the EU in 2004 or 2007, were affected in different ways by the economic crisis and offered different responses to it. These widely differing impacts and responses can be satisfactorily explained and conceptualized in terms of relatively concrete and tangible differences in the structures of power, resources, opportunities, incentives and constraints that have emerged in these two broad groupings of countries. The economic systems that have emerged in most of the CIS countries have diverged substantially from those of the post-communist states that joined the EU, with significant cautionary implications for future attempts to integrate or associate CIS countries with the EU.