Modern history

Europe Since 1989: A History

Europe Since 1989: A History

The year 1989 brought the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. It was also the year that the economic theories of Reagan, Thatcher, and the Chicago School achieved global dominance. And it was these neoliberal ideas that largely determined the course of the political, economic, and social changes that transformed Europe—both east and west—over the next quarter century.

1. Introduction

On the Road to 1989

Postrevolutionary Europe

Neoliberalism on the Rise

Europe in Transformation

2. Where the East Meets the West: Crisis and Reform Debates in the 1980s

The Demise of State Socialism

An Alternative Reading of the Cold War

The Neoliberal Turn in East and West

3. The Revolutions of 1989–91

Milestones of the Revolutions

Causes of the Revolutions

Centers and Agents of Revolution

The “Negotiated” Revolution

4. Getting on the Neoliberal Bandwagon

Milestones of the Transformation

The Bumpy Road of Reforms in Eastern Europe

Neoliberalism’s Inherent Problems

A Typology of Reform Outcomes

5. Second-Wave Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism at Full Speed

Flat Tax Systems and Populism

Human Capital

New Wealth

Rich Cities, Poor Regions

The EU’s Marshall Plan for the East

6. Capital Cities Compared

Chalk and Cheese? Or Why We Should Compare

The Situation before 1989

Transformation from Below

The New Business Boom

Poor Berlin

Boomtown Warsaw

Metropolitan Convergence, or Why the East Looks like the West

7. The Great Recession: 2008–9 and Its Consequences

The End of Economic Convergence?

Variations of Crises

Predatory Lending in Central and Eastern Europe

Political Reactions: Between Neoliberalism and Authoritarianism

8. Southern Europe: The New East?

Crisis Commonalities between Southern and Eastern Europe

Escape Route: Mass Migration

Mental Maps of Europe

9. Cotransformation: The Case of Germany

Social and Labor Market Reforms in Germany

The Civil Society Debate

The Politicians Who Came in from the East

10. The Roads Not Taken

Mass Participation in Revolution

The Values of 1989

Birth Pangs of United Europe

The Conflict over Ukraine

Europe after Neoliberalism

Notes

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