ABSTRACT
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the early 2000s looked very much as many had expected it to in the early 1990s. After the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, a lot of emphasis was put on the crucial role of foreign investors in the transition. Little of that had materialized, but around 2000 the dreams started to come true. Foreign-led economies crystallized in the region, with foreign control of leading export industries and most of the public utilities, and unprecedented levels of foreign dominance in the banking sector. Now the states have converged towards distinctive models of the competition state. The dominant state strategies aim to promote competitiveness by attracting foreign direct investment. The states are thus increasingly internationalized, forging economic globalization by facilitating capital accumulation for transnational investors. So why did the state strategies converge towards the competition state only around 2000? What does this tell us about the processes in which the states adapt to the environment of economic globalization, on the one hand, and help to reproduce it, on the other? What are the political and social preconditions for the rise of the competition state and what are its implications?
