Social evolution in terms of economic dynamics: Eastern European countries between 1990 and 2014

Social Evolution & History. 2016. Vol. 15. No. 2. P. 3–24.

Akaev A., Ichkitidze Y., Sarygulov A., Sokolov V.

The collapse of the socialist system laid all former members of the Warsaw Pact bloc and Council for Mutual Economic Assistance under the necessity for choosing a new developmental path. Nowadays, a quarter of a century later, we can state for certain that the Eastern European and Baltic countries which had chosen the integration with the Western Europe evolved in social, political and economic terms, yet their evolutionary pathways significantly differ from the development patterns chosen by the political elite of other countries of the former Soviet Union. In the early twenty-first century the development of global economy proved that the growth potential of the G-7 countries reached its limit and that their structural economic imbalance reduces competitiveness of their products and services in international markets. Therefore, the transitional processes in the Eastern European countries and their influence on development of political, social and economic institutions are of practical interest. Besides, the unstable evolutionary processes in these countries demonstrate a complexity of transformation processes and importance of the chosen reform options.

Keywords: global economy, economic dynamics, social evolution

Publication based on the results of: The Arab Spring as the Trigger of a Global Phase Transition (2016)