On the demise of European socialism: Andre Gunder Frank and international political economy

Abstract

Thousands of works will be written on the demise of 'real, existing socialism' in Europe. The mere trickle we now see is best explained by the fact that theories of international politics and political economy are unequal to the task. The various missions, political and economic, making pilgrimages to the East carry with them 'solutions' based on theoretical frameworks that could not enlighten us as to the timing or in many cases the reasons for the crisis. The rest of the academy remains strangely quiet. Few predicted this turn of events, and popular/ ideological pronouncements provide little basis for analysis. A few representatives of major schools of thought are proclaiming some form of victory, though they do so neither loudly nor clearly. Into the muddle steps Andre Gunder Frank with a world system explanation of 'what went wrong'. Frank's perspective includes a single world system driven by capital accumulation, bifurcated into center and periphery, and punctuated by economic cycles of prosperity and crisis, and political cycles of hegemonic leadership and rivalry. Rejecting arguments based on ideological differences, Frank suggests that the socialist bloc adopted much the same strategy for economic growth as the rest of the periphery, and subsequently fell prey to a global economic crisis. As Latin American, African and some Asian countries declined, so did those of Eastern Europe. The USSR was affected through its relations with Eastern Europe, through the crisis-driven arms race that began in 1979, and by policy miscalculations in places like Afghanistan. Frank's analysis is superior to those offered by other major schools of thought, none of which fared as well as world system analysis. Frank's identification of historical continuities also provides a sense of perspective missing from other analyses. In the areas of crisis dynamics, of the similarities between eastern and southern economic policies, and as regards linkages between global and local phenomena, Frank's arguments are in need of additional support. Finally, I take issue with the four