ABSTRACT
In Chapter 2 the authors pursue two main goals. First, they conduct a survey of the most representative theoretical and empirical research in the mushrooming literature on the emerging varieties or models of post-communist capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE11). They critically review both standard conceptual and methodological frameworks and their applications (including in particular the works of Hall and Soskice, 2001; Hanson, 2006; Amable, 2003; Knell and Srholec, 2007; and Mykhnenko, 2007) and their derivatives (with special regard to the proposition made by Nölke and Vliegenthart (2009) and the contributions by Babos (2010), Farkas (2011), and Ahlborn, Ahrens and Schweickert (2016)). A good deal of attention has been also paid in the chapter to non-standard approaches such as those put forward by King and Szelenyi (2005), Myant and Drahokoupil (2011), and Bohle and Greskovits (2012). Second, the chapter summarizes the main findings which stem from the survey of the literature on comparative capitalism in the post-communist world, highlighting the major peculiarities of the institutional architecture in CEE countries and its evolution which make a direct application to this category of countries of both standard and (to a lesser degree) non-standard analytical frameworks problematic.
