| This dissertation explains the variation in enterprise insider influence over privatization across Eastern Europe, specifically six relatively similar cases: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia. It argues that the 1989 revolutions did not create an institutional blank slate. It uses a comparative most-similar case design utilizing thick description to demonstrate a strong correlation between the degree of centralization of economic decision-making for enterprises during the socialist period and the degree of influence over privatization of enterprise insiders in the post-socialist period. The more property rights, residual rights in particular, were distributed amongst dispersed groups in society under socialism, especially to enterprise workers and managers, the more influence held by those groups in the post-socialist period over the redistribution of those property rights through the privatization process. My argument strongly suggests causation between the two using institutional and path dependency theory. It urges greater consideration in economic analysis of potential institutional constraints on a government's policy choice and policy implementation capacity. |
