ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a framework for thinking about the processes of economic reform and privatization in Eastern Europe and the social factors that are likely to affect them. Of particular importance in the reform strategies have been the policies aimed at the expansion of a private sector through encouraging new small businesses and by means of privatization of state assets. Discussion of such issues has often been based on a particular set of sociological assumptions concerning the necessity to create a new commercial middle class as a social basis for the stable operation of both a market economy and a pluralistic political system. As M. Jackson suggests, political conflicts have been among the major causes of impediments to privatization throughout Eastern Europe. In other societies where privatization reforms are now under way, further variations on the forms of the politics of privatization are beginning to emerge. Privatization strategies involved governments in conflicts, not only with enterprise managements, but also with workers.
