Dependent development at a crossroads? Romanian capitalism and its contradictions

Abstract

How has the Great Recession changed what we know about dependent market economies (DME) in Eastern Europe? To answer that question this paper looks at the case of Romania’s version of the DME and captures both understudied forms of dependence and emerging interdependence dynamics that the existing literature on dependence has hitherto neglected. Specifically, the literature does not analyse the role of transnational banks in forging a politicised public–private form of sovereign debt crisis governance. Second, the inattention of the literature to the supply side of the labour market leads to the neglect of migration as a critical factor shaping state, multinational corporation and corporate strategies. Third, the analysis highlights the centrality of industrial policy in a Janus-faced process in which neoliberal competition state has to cohabit with an incipient, wobbly but nevertheless real neo-developmentalist entrepreneurial state.