"Our martyrs of 1989 did not die for this!" Political capitalism in post-communist Romania

Abstract

"As historical evidence shows, there are multiple roads to such different forms of capitalism as 'traditional commercial capitalism' and 'political capitalism'. And, following Weber, not all of these forms can trigger the long term stable economic growth associated with Western rational capitalism. Although previous sociological analyses have improved our understanding of post-socialism, they have generated more controversy than theoretical convergence. This is because, the author contends, many sociological studies have neglected the political and historical aspects involved in the construction of markets in the former communist bloc. In this paper the author discusses the features of political capitalism in post-communist Romania, a case that has been infrequently addressed by mainstream analyses of Central and Eastern Europe. Specifically, the author analyzes the rise of political capitalism as an effect of Romania' s communist and post-communist political-institutional histories." (author's abstract)