ABSTRACT
The chapter investigates problems of capital accumulation, the features of post-socialist transition, as well as the geoeconomic features of the externally managed and financed integration of post-socialist transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) into the global economy and the European Union (EU). It considers the principles of geoeconomics in order to analyse the Central and Eastern European region and the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in transformation. In contrast to geopolitics, the chapter focuses primarily on private enterprises, networks not blocs, connections not iron curtains, and transborder ties instead of national territories. The chapter analyses the changing geoeconomic position of the CEE region that re-emerged after the change of regime during the 1990s in the context of world-system and dependent-market economy models. It describes the legacy and the geoeconomic position of the CEE region by introducing the changing geoeconomic framework conditions of the past century.
