Roadmaps to post-communist neoliberalism: the case of the Baltic states

ABSTRACT

This article uncovers the pre-1991 origins of Baltic neoliberal regimes. It highlights the role of the communication networks between reformist economists in the Baltic National Fronts and social forces advocating neoliberalism in Scandinavia and the United States. We assert that those networks functioned as the early carriers of ideational and policy change, even if reform contents were authored by domestic rather than transnational agencies. Firstly, the article previews the structural factors conducive to network formation. Secondly, it examines the networks by highlighting cross-national differences. Finally, it chronicles the idiosyncratic paths of neoliberal reformers’ ascendance to the positions of influence.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism
• Baltic states
• economic history
• communication networks
• Shock Therapy
• post-communism

Acknowledgments

The author received financial support for the research and authorship of this research article from KONE Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Koneen Säätiö .

Notes on contributors

Jokubas Salyga

Jokubas Salyga is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. His research interests include the historical sociology of post-communist transformations in the Baltic states, labor resistance in east-central Europe, and the political economy of European integration. This research article has been written in part during his post-doctoral fellowship at the Aleksanteri Institute (Finnish Centre for Russian and Eastern European Studies), University of Helsinki, funded by Kone Foundation.