ABSTRACT

After examining the tortuous process of modernisation in ECE it seems inconceivable that the region should now reach any plateau of stability. Of course, as regards the mere adoption of new technology the experience has hardly been exceptional, for the development of railways-through the detailed information available on each section of what became a highly complex network-points to a classic diffusion process extending from the innovation centres in Western Europe and Germany, allowing for the sudden slump in density beyond the limits of the German and Habsburg empires. At the same time, the Iron Curtain proved to be a particularly effective technological barrier because of communist ambivalence over the adoption of new ideas as well as Western reservations over their strategic interests. The Soviets could copy the West but could not innovate on more than a narrow front. Hence Berend’s conclusion (2002 p. 21) that Central and Eastern Europe has never pioneered techological revolution with insufficient resources for research to overcome the lack of knowledge and know-how: ‘mediocrity and other cultural factors have always been obstacles to innovation and have never in modern history allowed a peripheral country to play a leading role in technology’. Nine states that scored 59% of West Europe’s per capita GDP in 1820 but only 51% in 1950 saw their performance slump further to 40% in 1989 (ibid. p. 15). So the last traumatic decade has witnessed a catching-up process to assimilate revolutions in telecommunications, information technology, retailing and financial services. And it remains to be seen how much longer it will take for civil society and economic structures to evolve to the point where there is convergence over productivity, incomes and living standards.