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This critical interpretive paper deploys Walter Mignolo's geopolitics of knowledge concept to examine higher education internationalisation in Kazakhstan. Amidst growing concerns about economic and environmental sustainability, elitism and cognitive justice, among other critical issues, internationalisation remains a vital government policy. By tracing Kazakhstan's development since independence from the Soviet Union and focusing on key higher education development policy frameworks, the paper argues and illustrates that: (1) the internationalisation of higher education in Kazakhstan promotes a specific representation of the world that is considered universal and modern; (2) the internationalisation of higher education in Kazakhstan illustrates the existing hierarchical global higher education system that is dominated by the West as centres of knowledge and learning while allocating other countries peripheral roles; and (3) the geopolitics of knowledge concept enables the reading of higher education internationalisation beyond what is knowledge to who, why and where knowledge is produced. The data for this paper came from a qualitative study that involved 15 semi‐structured interviews with graduates who studied abroad at Western universities through the government‐sponsored Bolashak Scholarship. Three focus group sessions with 21 graduate students at Nazarbayev University complemented the interviews. The qualitative data suggest that Mignolo's geopolitics of knowledge offers a close‐to‐perfect description of the internationalisation of higher education in Kazakhstan. The conclusion drawn from this post‐Soviet study is the universalisation of Western knowledge as nations utilise it for meaningful development, despite decolonial and cognitive justice concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Georgia, the question of academic freedom emerged only after the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and its universities could begin reckoning with a heavy past of ideological pressure, censorship, governmental control and top‐down management. Despite official declarations of the right to academic freedom and its recognition within Georgia's legal framework, actual practice in the country's higher education system tells a different story. The paper draws on qualitative data obtained from sixteen academics representing diverse institutions and disciplines, as well as the secondary data including educational legislation, government regulations, ministers' decrees, various reports from non‐governmental organisations, think tanks and media archives. The findings of this paper reflect how academic freedom is understood in Georgia and two major threats to its exercise in universities, namely, interference from external politics and internal managerialism. We argue that academic freedom as a concept does not yet have its own place in Georgia's higher education system, protected de jure but with different de facto realities. The paper sheds light on how Soviet legacies of self‐censorship, hidden mechanisms of control and a culture of conformity continue to create tensions inside universities and an environment in which academic freedom cannot flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Despite its invaluable contribution to the field of comparative economics, the socialist calculation debate has focused on the narrow topic of the impossibility of the rational economic calculation under socialism. The literature on new institutional economics suggests that economic development is determined by economic and political institutions which are far more complex than the issue of economic calculation. To bridge the gap between the calculation debate and new institutional economics, this paper utilizes the historical case studies of Perestroika and Deng's China to demonstrate relationship between state capacity and economic calculation. We argue that rational economic calculation requires the state's institutional ability to make a credible commitment to constraints inhibiting public predation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the contents of professional architectural books on worker residential areas in the Soviet Union, analyzing proposals based on the Northeast China's experience during the First Five‐Year Plan. Despite sharing a common source for residential design, differences in regional and situational conditions result in diversity between China and the Soviet Union. By considering the plan for worker residential areas in Beijing and analyzing the case of the planned Beijing No. 2 textile factory in 1953, it can be concluded that China had already developed original residential planning ideas and methods during that period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1917, the Bolsheviks took power in Russia under the banner of equality. Within the city, their aspiration to eliminate the core‐periphery sociospatial disparities resulted in dividing Moscow's privileged historic centre among its peripheral districts. This attempt to design districts of similar socio‐economic composition was short‐lived. Already in the 1930s, corresponding with the rise of the Stalinist state, the city centre partially re‐appeared in the form of the newly established smaller sectorial districts that were eliminated only after Stalin's death. Utilizing previously classified archival data of the 1939 population census, this paper sheds light on the sociospatial differentiation of Stalinist Moscow by comparing its central districts to the rest of the city as well as to the Bolshevik zoning of the 1920s. This analysis posits that the Bolshevik ideal of territorial equality was not achieved: politically, ethnically and socially, Stalinist Moscow in the late 1930s remained spatially unequal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing studies usually find that technical change was very important in constraining the economic growth of the Soviet Union. While these studies have been successful in quantifying the extent of technical change, they have been less successful in quantifying its nature. This paper moves a step closer to probing the essence of Soviet efficiency by splitting the aggregate technical change into its subcomponents – namely, capital and labour efficiency. I find that the Soviet Union registered strong labour efficiency gains during most of the postwar period, converging towards the labour efficiency level of the global frontier – the US. Labour efficiency growth did decrease over time, but labour efficiency was not a primary cause of Soviet growth retardation. That retardation was instead caused by a decline in capital efficiency. At a disaggregated level, I find that the decrease in capital efficiency was driven by structures. I hypothesize that labour shortages and an inadequate investment policy resulted in a large stock of unfinished, and hence idle, structures, distorting Soviet economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we apply imprinting theory to examine how institutional transformation substantially influences perceptions of corruption that we argue to be incorporated to a varying extent in organizations founded in that period. For this purpose, we compare the effect of a sudden shock (dissolution of the Soviet Union) on the managers' present perceptions to that of a steady transition (EU accession). We consult the 5th round of the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey from 2012 to 2014 analyzing 4715 interviews with managers of organizations from twelve Central and Eastern European countries. Our results reveal striking differences in the present perception of corruption for organizations founded immediately before and immediately after these institutional transitions. The study's results contribute to the research on imprinting theory regarding the relationship between organizations and institutional conditions that constitutes a lasting effect on organizational structures. Thus, applying an institutional perspective that considers less stable periods for organizations yields a promising avenue in research on organizational behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the differences in female work experience across Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). We use retrospective SHARELIFE data to analyse women's work history from 1950 to 1990. We provide descriptive evidence that women's work experience varied across CEECs. Furthermore, we argue that comparing the former provinces of the Russian Empire in Lithuania and Poland provides a natural experiment, allowing us to disentangle the effect of the differential implementation of the Soviet regime from the pre‐existing differences. We find that during communism, Lithuanian women worked 2 years more by age 50 relative to their Polish counterparts. This effect is one‐third of that found in the East–West Germany comparison. We propose several potential mechanisms behind this finding: the degree of land collectivization, the Church's influence and the sectoral composition. Accordingly, this study's findings highlight the importance of country differences in CEECs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alexander Bogdanov (1873–1928) was a Russian social theorist and revolutionary activist whose 'universal organizational science', or Tektology, is increasingly being recognized as offering stronger foundations for the systems approach than the later 'general system theory' of Ludwig von Bertalanffy. Had his thinking not been suppressed by Stalin, the course of Soviet history might have been different. Stafford Beer (1926–2002) was a British management scientist and consultant who was a pioneer in the development of 'organizational cybernetics'. His best‐known engagement was with the government of Salvador Allende, in Chile, seeking to use his 'viable system model' to create a socialist society that did not rest on a command economy. This experiment was cut short by the Pinochet coup d'etat. I have found no evidence that Beer was familiar with the work of Bogdanov, and this makes the similarities in their thinking particularly striking. This paper explores the ideas they shared in common. The work of other writers who have drawn on the work of Bogdanov and Beer, in formulating contemporary visions of post‐capitalism, is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the construction and role of national memory in exile through the intersection of nationalism and memory studies. Building on descriptions of the Georgian émigré memory, its comparison with the Soviet Georgian identity and its travelling trajectory, this study illustrates the potential of subaltern national exilic memory. My research data on prominent Georgian émigrés are juxtaposed with a recent historical study of the internal diaspora of prominent Georgians in the Soviet Union. This is a story of postcolonial intellectuals and nationalist elites who acted as a carrier group in 1921, advocating internationally against the suffering of Soviet Georgians. Exiles produced an alternative account, comprised of four counternarratives, to that of the Soviet Union. These identified narratives constitute a stored memory that became an available past for Georgia. The safeguarded émigré memory was negotiated, recovered, used for centennial celebrations in 2018 and finally reintegrated into the national body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the professional experiences of female employees. Furthering ourselves from the textual film analysis prevalent in the Baltic film studies, we turn toward experiences of female film workers by using intermethodological approach, combining feminist film studies and psychology. We are focusing on the 30‐year period of the existence of independent Lithuania, which we understand as a post‐Soviet period, a time after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a postcolonial condition in which the values of the old system meet the new ones influenced by the processes of globalization. Using the method of thematic analysis, we analyze the interviews of 22 women of various age groups working in various positions in the film industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the 'nationalist movement' of Ahıska, a forcibly displaced people who have been arriving in Turkey from various parts of the former Soviet Union since the early 1990s. I focus on how members of this community attempt to define the Turkish nation, how they invoke migration to Turkey as a patriotic and nationalist act, how they criticize the state's responses to this migration as insufficiently nationalist, and how they respond to the movement of non‐Turkish others into the territorial and documentary space that they seek to inhabit. This nationalist movement, albeit small in number, demands our attention because it is born of a phenomenon that is intimately familiar to displaced people and not commonly associated with nationalism – the longing for rest. This longing animates Ahıska efforts to organize themselves and engage with the Turkish state. What possibilities and limitations does this genre of nationalist movement hold for displaced people across the world? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soviet science contributed significantly to our understanding of anthropogenic climate change and, as part of this, played a central role in the emerging science underpinning climate modification and geoengineering initiatives. A key focus of discussion was the use of stratospheric aerosols linked to the innovative ideas of Mikhail Budyko and colleagues. This work had its origins in what has been termed the theory of aerosol climatic catastrophe, which gained prominence in the Soviet context during the early 1970s. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the ideas of Budyko concerning the use of stratospheric aerosols were advanced by Yuri Izrael and his collaborators. The associated body of work gained traction during the 2000s and engendered a wider debate concerning the efficacy of geoengineering solutions amongst Russia's climate scientists. The legacies of this scientific discussion are also evident in recent high‐level international debates such as those linked to the activities of the IPCC. While significant geopolitical obstacles remain in the way of an international agreement linked to the possible deployment of geoengineering measures, interest continues to grow. The maturity of Russian science in the area of geoengineering and climate modification ensures that it remains an important voice within the broader scientific debate. At the same time, the progressive isolation of Russian science from the international scene due to wider geopolitical events risks deflecting attention away from contemporary popular and political debate in this area and alienating this rich scientific tradition at a critical juncture. This article is categorized under:Climate, History, Society, Culture > Ideas and KnowledgeClimate, History, Society, Culture > Disciplinary PerspectivesClimate, History, Society, Culture > Technological Aspects and Ideas [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the twentieth century, the socialist bloc became a second home for socialists from Iran and Afghanistan. Iranian socialists almost certainly constituted the largest foreign diaspora in the USSR at the time of its dissolution, and Soviet entanglements in Afghanistan led to a large flow of Afghan soldiers, students, and socialists to the Soviet Union in the latter half of the twentieth century. The USSR also sponsored Persian socialist internationalism domestically in the form of the Tajik SSR. This paper uses sources from all three sides of the "Persianate triangle" (Tajikistan, Iran, and Afghanistan) to highlight how encounters between socialist groups often highlighted differences between these groups' understanding of socialism despite a shared Persian language. More broadly, it points to the importance of "subnational actors" in the making of Soviet foreign policy. Case studies of a Tajik translator in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan as well as Iranian socialist exiles in Kabul also show how the memory of socialist internationalism has been processed and narrated very differently within the Iranian diaspora and Tajikistan today. In conclusion, the article shows how the networks forged by Soviet internationalism have often been reworked in the wake of the collapse of the USSR and offers reflections on how scholars can engage further in the study of "subnational internationalism." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world's large lakes and their life‐supporting services are rapidly threatened by eutrophication in the warming climate during the Anthropocene. Here, MODIS‐Aqua level 3 chlorophyll‐a data (2018–2021) were used to monitor trophic state in our planet's largest lake, that is, the Caspian Sea that accounts for approximately 40% of the total lacustrine waters on Earth. We also used the in situ measurements of chlorophyll‐a data (2009–2019) to further verify the accuracy of the data derived from the MODIS‐Aqua and to explore the deep chlorophyll‐a maxima (DCMs) in the south Caspian Sea. Our findings show an acceptable agreement between the chlorophyll‐a data derived from the MODIS‐Aqua and those measured in situ in the coast of Iran (coefficient of determination = 0.71). The oligotrophic, mesotrophic, and eutrophic states cover 66%, 20%, and 13% of the sea surface area, respectively. The DCMs are dominantly regulated by water transparency and they generally observe at depths of less than 20 and 30 m during the cold (autumn and winter) and warm (spring and summer) seasons, respectively. Our results suggest an ever‐increasing chlorophyll‐a in the shallow zones (i.e., coasts) and even in deep regions of the sea, mainly due to nutrient inputs from the Volga river delta. Alarming increase of chlorophyll‐a in this transboundary lake can amplify eutrophication under the lens of global warming and further threaten the lake ecosystem's health, where almost all legal agreements have not yet been implemented to protect the lake environment and its rich resources. Plain Language Summary: Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the "Tehran Convention" was signed by the post‐Soviet countries to protect the Caspian Sea environment. However, the development of urbanization and the increase of industrial and agricultural activities in the Caspian Sea region introduce large nutrient loads, mostly from the north end, leading to ever‐increasing symptoms of eutrophication and repeatedly algal bloom events with acute implications for the positive functions of the sea ecosystem. Here, we investigated the recent spatial‐temporal changes in chlorophyll‐a concentration and the sea eutrophication using the MODIS‐Aqua level 3 satellite data in the Caspian Sea (2018–2021), as the Earth's largest lake, to highlight alarming increase of chlorophyll‐a in the sea, which can further threaten the lake ecosystem's health. Given the projected decline in the Caspian Sea's water level and large nutrient inputs induced by the intensified agricultural and industrial activities in the sea watershed, the eutrophic waters are expected to further cover the sea area in the future. Therefore, immediate actions should be planned to limit the nutrient inputs to the sea, a target that can be accessible by complete implementation of the "Tehran Convention" by the littoral states. Key Points: MODIS‐Aqua chlorophyll‐a data were used to monitor the trophic state in our planet's largest lake, that is, the Caspian SeaOur findings suggest an ever‐increasing chlorophyll‐a and eutrophic state in the lake, which can threaten the lake ecosystem's healthIncrease of chlorophyll‐a in the Caspian Sea can further amplify eutrophication under the lens of global warming [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote sensing observations have been interpreted to indicate that the Crisium basin‐forming event excavated deep crust and upper mantle. Samples from the highlands adjacent to the Crisium basin returned by Luna 20 (L‐20) bring a unique perspective for evaluating this concept. The magmatic lithologies returned from the noritic Hilly and Furrowed Terrain (nHFT) by L‐20 are coarse‐grained feldspar (>300 μm) with inclusions of pyroxene, and finer‐grained norites, troctolites, spinel troctolites, and gabbros (<100 μm). These two suites represent ferroan anorthosites (FANs) and the Mg‐suite, respectively. There is limited evidence for mantle or deep crustal material within the nHFT samples. Ultramafic rocks such as dunites and orthopyroxenites are absent, and Mg‐rich olivine‐ and orthopyroxene‐bearing‐assemblages are derived from magmatic rocks emplaced in the shallow crust. These lithic fragments represent pre‐Crisium episodes of magmatism (Mg‐suite) and lunar magma ocean products (FANs). The lack of deep lithologies at the L‐20 site seems contradictory to excavation models for Crisium. Mineralogical‐chemical differences suggest a higher FAN component in the rim and that this represents FANs excavated from the deep lunar crust. If it exists, the Mg‐rich olivine previously identified within the Crisium rim is most likely related to deep, complementary versions of the Mg‐suite rocks from L‐20. The material associated with the Crisium basin is not derived from the lunar mantle but represents crustal lithologies from the shallow to deep crust, a substantial mantle component may have been incorporated into the Crisium basin impact melt sheet, or that our "Earth‐analog" for the lunar upper mantle is incorrect. Plain Language Summary: In 1972, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics space program launched and successfully return to Earth a robotic sample return mission to the highland terrain adjacent to the Crisium impact basin. This mission returned 50 g of lunar soil. This study integrates data collected from orbit, previously collected data, and new sample data to better place the Luna 20 samples within the context of both new lunar science concepts and regional geology. Crystalline magmatic rocks from the Luna 20 site are primarily ferroan anorthosites (FANs), products of the lunar magma ocean, and Mg‐suite rocks that post‐dated the formation of the FANs. Both rock types represent crystallization in the intermediate to shallow lunar crust. These observation contrasts with current basin forming concepts for the Crisium basin that suggest deep crust and mantle were excavated during this event. We conclude that either the material associated with the Crisium basin is not derived from the lunar mantle, a substantial mantle component had been incorporated into the impact melt sheet associated with the Crisium basin, or that our "Earth‐analog" for the upper mantle of the Moon is incorrect. Key Points: The Luna 20 mission to the highlands adjacent to the Crisium basin did not return materials from the deep lunar crust and lunar mantleAmong the highlands rocks returned by Luna 20 are shallowly emplaced Mg‐suite rocks, mid‐crustal ferroan anorthosites, and a variety of impact melt rocksCrisium material was not derived from mantle, mantle was incorporated into impact melt, or the "Earth‐analog" for the mantle is incorrect [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fifteenth Party Congress of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) took place in December 1927. It brought to an end the inner‐Party struggle of the Soviet Communist Party by confirming the expulsion of Leon Trotsky, Gregorii Zinoviev and other oppositionists from Party and government posts. The Fifteenth Party Congress marked the domination of Iosif Stalin and his allies over the whole Party and the beginning of Stalinist politics which flourished in the following decades. Despite extensive scholarly interest in this crucial Party congress in the history of the early Soviet Union and the Soviet Communist Party, little has been studied on the organisational aspect of the Fifteenth Congress. This article examines the process of establishing the organisational and institutional mechanisms ahead of the Fifteenth Congress, which enabled Stalin and the Central Committee to unanimously affirm the correctness of the Party line. It also explores how Stalin attained legitimacy as the Party leader during the pre‐Fifteenth Congress discussion and how it was presented at the Fifteenth Congress. Furthermore, this article demonstrates how the 'memory' of the Fifteenth Congress was constructed and how the Party leaders institutionalised the meaning of the Fifteenth Congress. Through these examinations, this article will shed fresh light on the Fifteenth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party and will contribute to the study of the rise of Stalinism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article establishes a rational, feasible, and necessary conclusion to reform high school science content into an equitable experience for its wide diversity of students' self‐identities. Research indicates that 85% of graduates would not normally have enrolled in any science course unless required. Their values are more aligned with their everyday world and/or the world of the humanities, to varying degrees. The 15% had already fulfilled their science prerequisite for postsecondary science‐related programs, to varying degrees. The article's conclusion rests mainly on historical and economic evidence, respectively: (1) The Sputnik crisis that instilled public fear and anxiety about the perceived technological gap between the United States and Soviet Union. This led to reforming high school science and implementing National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (2) The on‐growing climate‐change crisis for which the smart international money is increasingly investing in sustainable businesses and industries, which catalyze a shift in public values from the current "profit society" to a "sustainable society." The article's rationale connects the two historical events. Over the past 30 years, the nature of normal science has evolved into post‐normal science. Today the public square also includes: (a) an international assessment project that receives a negative validity audit in this article; (b) a vocal small minority within the 85%, proud of their antiscience self‐identities and their leaders' hostile behavior (a problem to ameliorate by a reformed sustainable science education); and (c) instances of small‐scale, suitable reform examples developed over the last 70 years, often referred to as humanistic school science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lithuania, as a part of the former Soviet Union, has a long‐standing history of perceived equality for women in the workplace. Women played an equal role in economic production as it was a constitutional expectation that all citizens had both a right and an obligation to work. Consequently, at the time of independence in 1990 the levels of participation of women in the workplace including at managerial and professional levels were much higher than other western European countries. In architecture, women achieved parity in terms of numbers, but this equality did not transfer into all aspects of economic activity. Drawing on qualitative survey and interview data from 31 Lithuanian women architects, our findings show, despite the historical emphasis on equality, the existence of a "critical mass" of women in the profession and the adoption of EU gender equality policy, the position of women remains poor with clear evidence of sex discrimination, harassment, and lack of opportunities for career advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What can enhance positive inter‐group contacts in a world of mass immigration is a subject high on the theoretical and practical agenda. However, there is a lack of research examining how contacts with different immigrant groups are related to characteristics of the group, as perceived by the receiving society. Using Threat‐Benefit Theory (Tartakovsky & Walsh, 2016a, 2016b, 2019, 2020), the present study examines how different domains of positive and negative appraisal of a specific immigrant group may relate to contacts with group members. Using a representative sample of 1600 adults in the majority of the Jewish population in Israel, we applied network analysis to examine relationships between threat‐benefit appraisal, opportunities for contact and levels of positive and negative contacts with four immigrant groups: diaspora immigrants from Ethiopia, Western countries and the former Soviet Union and asylum seekers. Levels of contact were related to particular domains of appraisal, which differed across immigrant groups. However, opportunities for contact had a stronger association with contact than the appraisal. Results point to a theoretical need to develop nuanced models related to inter‐group contact, which consider particular characteristics of the immigrant group as perceived by the local population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atmospheric nuclear test detonations conducted by USA, USSR, UK, France and China, 1945–1980, generated radioactive particles that were dispersed by weather patterns, returning to earth as fallout. People who lived 'downwind' face ongoing risks from their exposure to ionizing radiation, as well as psychological, social, cultural and political distress. However, testing states obscured these humanitarian consequences by claiming that fallout could be contained to specific spatial zones, that there are 'thresholds' below which radiation exposure has negligible health impacts and that socio‐political forms of harm should be disregarded. While the scientific consensus concludes fallout circulates in complex, nonlinear patterns; there is no safe level of radiation exposure; and nuclear testing can generate tremendous anxiety, what Liboiron calls 'threshold thinking' continues to underlie policies ostensibly assisting victims of nuclear weapons. This article offers examples from responses to French Pacific nuclear testing, showing how access to compensation and other assistance has often been conditioned on threshold qualifications that function to limit downwind communities' access to assistance and remedy. Victim assistance and environmental remediation obligations in the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons offer opportunities to move beyond reductive policy logics to multifaceted, human rights‐based approaches to affected communities' concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Since the dissolution of the USSR, the former Soviet countries not included in the enlargement of the European Union (EU) have experienced divergent development. While the so‐called Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries established closer ties with the EU, the Central Asian (CA) states mostly gravitated towards Russia and China. Thus, despite belonging to a similar economic and political system, the two groups of countries pursued transition to a market‐oriented economy and fostering development with varying results, creating a neat contrast to facilitate the study of patterns of growth and disparity. Purpose: Based on an analysis covering more than two decades, the article explores the growth paths of the EaP and CA countries. Given their bumpy economic performances, the article aims, first, to show how these affected economic disparities among them. Second, it aims to identify the factors which most influenced different development trajectories. Approach and methods: Through analysis of panel data, the article seeks to explain long‐term economic growth (1992–2015) in terms of endowments of production factors, macroeconomic stabilization and transition reforms, external conditions and institutional development. Sources of growth are identified to reveal how they affected income per capita and shaped convergence in the two groups of countries. Findings: The EaP and CA countries show different growth patterns since the end of communism. While the EaP economies shrank more during the 1990s compared to the CA group, they bounced back faster during the 2000s. The EaP economies, being more closely connected to the EU, were more affected by the Great Recession of 2007–2009 than those of the CA. Overall, economic disparities between these sets of countries have slightly increased. Physical capital, foreign direct investment, natural resources, openness to trade and the transition reforms significantly explain economic growth, with stronger effects in the EaP compared to CA countries, which suggests the EU's neighbourhood instruments have been effective in promoting growth. Policy implications: Our findings suggest that stepping up reforms, preserving macroeconomic stability, enhancing openness to trade and accumulating factors of production spurred growth in both EaP and CA countries. Pursuing closer ties with the EU economies fostered growth by strengthening investment, foreign trade, structural and market reforms, and by better use of natural resources. Given the large variations seen between countries in both groups, more detailed country diagnoses are needed to tailor interventions according to the specifics of each country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on foundational arguments from the literature on emerging market institutional strategies, and employing a realist historical analysis, we present a retrospective on the Russian automotive industry. We begin by tracing the origins of the sector and synthesizing salient post World War II developments. We then recount the subsequent expansionary decade of the 1960s, followed by the stagnation of the late 1980s, culminating in the eventual collapse of socialism and the breakup of the USSR. Attracted by both the rapid growth in the local market, and the preferential tax rates that accompanied investments, we then document the swift expansion of production facilities in Russia by major global manufacturers in the 2000s. We show how eventually an ensuing sharp halt in local market growth, and an accompanying rise in spare production capacity, saw most manufacturers pursue institutional strategies aimed at obtaining new tax concessions and leveraging intraindustry cooperation, rather than divesting their recently established production facilities. Overall, our retrospective, in particular, calls attention to how global manufacturers were not only to acquire able and rejuvenate existing production facilities or install new greenfield ones, but also to exercise their agency in shaping the broader policy framework and in fashioning new sectoral institutions designed to buttress and sustain the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article chronicles the evolution of poverty in the formerly socialist economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The article is an analytical review covering the 30 years since the launch of market reforms with a reflection on the impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic. The theoretical assumption in the 1990s of a seamless transition from a socialist, state‐led economy to a capitalist, market‐driven economy remained just that—an assumption. Many of the tangible improvements in living standards for the bulk of the population of the post‐socialist era have yet to materialize. Focusing on the smallest post‐socialist economies, with a bigger picture in mind, this study argues that a crisis of human well‐being has been lurking in the background—behind macroeconomic stabilization and growth since the early 2000s. This article contributes to the literature on socioeconomic resilience, restructuring, critical perspectives on poverty, and efforts to define and measure poverty holistically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]