Transition in the Baltic States: Microlevel Studies by Neil s> Hood Jan-Erik Vahlne Robert Kilis (review)

Abstract

784 SEER, 79, 4, 200 I respondents were unable to judge the wartime state unequivocally, which supports Cohen's argument that ignorance and ambivalence rather than commitment are the sources of trouble in post-Communist Slovakia; what these data show that Cohen does not, however, is that the Slovak people cannot be presented as an undifferentiated mass. Gallup-method polls conducted by the Communist authoritiesin the I970s and I98os were already turningup a manifold Slovakia,cleftmore deeply than Bohemia and Moravia into socialists,Catholics, liberalsand 'bourgeoispragmatists'. Instead, and this is thirdflaw in the book, the profound divisionsin Slovak society are papered over, and the reader is told about a de'classè mob that gravitates to Meciar and leaves the handful of idealistic democrats and hardcore nationalistson the fringes.We are not reminded, for example, that electoral support for Meciar's HZDS peaked in I992 at 37 per cent and declined to 35 per cent in 1994 and then 27 per cent in i998. HZDS thus never even came close to winning the support of a majorityof Slovakvoters and had to govern either in a minority or an ever-fractiouscoalition. The outstandingwork of Slovak sociologistshas shown that Meciar's supportwas concentrated in particular areas of the country and segments of society, because the process of modernization has created a highly varied political geography. Cohen does not takethis into account, because herversion of how history and values were imparted to Slovaks over the Communist decades relies on a reading of school textbooks,which assumesa uniformimpact via a uniformcurriculum;herastuteobservationsaboutignoranceand ambivalence should have been applied more accurately and judiciously to sub-groups rather than to the nation as an indiscriminate whole. A reader of Cohen's book not familiar with the country would be hard pressed to reconcile her picture of Slovakiawith that conveyed by the resultsof the I998 election, in which voters, encouraged by a dynamic civil society, overwhelminglyrejected Me'iar and his 'mass-elite'on a turnoutof 84 per cent. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies KIERAN WILLIAMS University College London Hood, Neil; Vahlne, Jan-Erik and Kilis, Robert (eds). Transition in theBaltic States.Microlevel Studies. Macmillan, Basingstoke, and St Martin's Press, New York, I997. XV + 299 pp. Figures. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. ?50.00: $65.00. TRANSITION IN THE BALTIC STATES is a wide-ranging and useful addition to the post-communist transitionbookshelf. Consisting of papers delivered at a conference entitled Micro-level Studies oftheTransition in theBalticStatesheld in August I995 in Riga, Latvia, this collection is well edited by Neil Hood, JanErik Vahlne, and Robert Kilis. Contributors include forty-three Baltic and Westernscholarsinvitedto the conference organizedby the StockholmSchool of Economics. Ideallythe book is focused towardthose studyingthe economic transition in Eastern Europe. As the title suggests,the authors explore Baltic transitions through a plethora of inter-disciplinary socio-economic approaches. In particular,the volume focuses on how 'the microlevel niches REVIEWS 785 structurethe environment for political decisions and influence the efficiency of the implemented policies' (p. 2).The fourteenpapersincludedhere attempt to answertwo fundamentalquestions:what reformshave been successfuland what lessons can be drawn from the countries that started the transition process earlier? The editorshave divided the book into four sections. The firstsection deals with the changing attitudesand values of individualsand societal groups. For instance, Slavo Radosevic's essayexamines the affectsof the learningcurve of organizational capabilities on post-Socialist enterprises. In so doing, Radosevic lays down a descriptive model that uses sectoral, technological, and market characteristics to determine the level of development within enterprises . The second section attempts to tie policy-making to real world economic events. For example, Richard Rose's paper on micro-economic differencesamong Balticnationalitiestouches on one of the key socio-political issues in the region. The author presents compelling evidence for his end results.He discoversthat citizenship does not make a significantdifferencein economic conditions between groups. Section three looks at two sectoral examples. David Smallbone, Urve Venessar, Laimonis Rumpis and Danute Budreikateexamine the changes affectingsmall-and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises, while Hans-Joachim Zilcken investigates the agro-food sector in Latvia. The final section examines the linkbetween changing values and dynamic social systems. George Schopflin's chapter concentrates on attitudinalobstaclesto change aswell asthe natureof post-Communism. Included in these sections...