Open AccessThe uneven results of institutional changes in Central and Eastern Europe: The role of culture
Author(s) -
Svetozar Pejovic
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
economic annals/ekonomski anali
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.148
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1820-7375
pISSN - 0013-3264
DOI - 10.2298/eka0463007p
Subject(s) - restructuring , phenomenon , forcing (mathematics) , economic system , communism , mythology , process (computing) , political economy , transition (genetics) , political science , sociology , economic geography , market economy , economics , economy , law , epistemology , politics , history , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , climatology , classics , geology , operating system , computer science , gene
It has been widely observed that the same formal rules, enacted in the parliaments in the form of written laws, give vastly different results in different social and cultural environments. This phenomenon came to be particularly pronounced in the process of transition of the formerly communist countries to market economies and politically pluralized societies. Highly similar and occasionally identical institutional changes turned out to be unequally accepted by the societies under consideration and produced widely different results in the material restructuring of the economies. It became clear that the notion of institutions had to be widened so as to encompass the informal rules: the customs, the traditions, cultural values and national myths. Informal rules define the constraints for implementing the formal ones and, on the other hand, determine the actual effects of the latter once they are implemented. Forcing the formal rules upon the transition societies cannot be successful unless preceding and/or contemporaneous changes of informal rules are provided for. The paper ends with a design of the strategy for the decisively important changes in values and other components of informal rules