ABSTRACT
Socialist strategies rose, peaked and then failed in the context of a rapidly changing global economy. Their achievements and shortcomings are analysed in relation to international economic transformations and turning points (such as the two oil shocks) that altered the trading, financial and conceptual context within which socialist strategies operated. The chapter reconstructs the overall dynamic of East-West cooperation within the changing paradigms that replaced Keynesian management with global market competition. It assesses the socialist strategies’ results against the background of their domestic and international conditions, appraises the promises and limitations of a “socialist globalisation”, and weighs the role of expanding East-West cooperation in facilitating the 1989 collapse of socialist regimes.
