Description:
In the 1990s, states in what would become the eastern edge of the European Union transformed their political systems and economies, leaving state socialism behind for liberal democracies and free markets. In the ensuing decades, two shipyards that were once the pride of their cities - in Gdynia, Poland, and Pula, Croatia - went bankrupt, unable to withstand global competition.
Through an interdisciplinary study of these two shipyards, In the Storms of Transformation brings together a team of researchers to re-evaluate the shift from state socialism to market capitalism and offer a new periodization. With perspectives from social anthropology, sociology, and business history, the book argues that this transformation began with the oil crisis of the early 1970s and ended with EU accession - in 2004 in Poland and in 2013 in Croatia - highlighting the EU competition laws and global competition that pushed the shipyards into bankruptcy and diminishing the role of the revolutions of 1989.
In the Storms of Transformation bridges local labour history with global market forces, going beyond prevalent narratives of loss and nostalgia or successful neoliberal change to offer a novel and nuanced reading of post-communist transformation and its contradictions.
Review Quotes: "Shipbuilders were among the primary groups whose strikes and activism brought down communism: this pathbreaking volume asks what they ultimately achieved. Taking readers to their workplaces and communities over three decades, the authors examine gains but also losses. Did the transformation needlessly do away with things of value, like jobs and industry, or was the pain necessary for the transition to liberal society?"--John Connelly, Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of European History, University of California, Berkeley
"A stunning and detailed study of post-socialist transition told through the eyes of two shipyards in Poland and Croatia, emphasizing not only the economic but also the social and cultural effects of wave after wave of change. It forces us to look at just how stark the transition from socialism to capitalism has been - and at the storms that marked journey."--Mitchell A. Orenstein, Professor of Russian and East European Studies, University of Pennsylvania
"Just two shipyards? Don't fool yourself: this is a brilliant excavation of the processes associated with the end of communism in Eastern Europe and the cases drawn from Poland - the Paris Commune Shipyard in Gdynia - and Croatia - the Uljanik shipyard in Pula - serve as lenses through which to see how the post-communist transformation unfolded. One of the many insights in this fascinating book is the revelation that, in socialist times, the shipyards served to provide a range of services to their employees and their families, including cultural offerings, welfare benefits, complimentary sacks of potatoes and onions, and sometimes also candies. Based on extensive interviews, company archives from the shipyards, and back issues of the Croatian shipbuilding magazine Brodogradnja, among other sources, this volume explains why these once-flourishing shipyards eventually went bankrupt and offers a stunning glimpse into the lost world of East European shipbuilding."--Sabrina P. Ramet, Professor Emerita, the Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU), and author of East Central Europe and Communism: Politics, Culture, and Society, 1943-1991