Peter Wegenschimmel

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.

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.

lpreisschock, Rezession und Transformation - w hrend Europa einen dramatischen Strukturwandel erlebte, widersetzten sich die Werften Gdynia (Polen) und Uljanik (Kroatien) seit den 1970ern jeder gr eren Reform. Trotz permanenter Krise und notorischer Unrentabilit t existierten sie noch Jahrzehnte weiter. Die Studie geht der Frage nach, warum die einstigen sozialistischen Vorzeigebetriebe ihren Untergang so lange hinausz gern konnten. Der Autor zeichnet nach, wie die Unternehmen lernten, in ihrem berlebenskampf die ffentlichkeit auf ihre Seite zu ziehen und wie insbesondere die unsichtbare Hand des Staates sie st tzte. Erst die Beitritte Polens (2004) und Kroatiens (2013) zur Europ ischen Union brachten die Entflechtung zwischen staatlichen Akteuren und Unternehmen, was die Abwicklung der Werften einleitete. Das Buch gew hrt einen seltenen Einblick in die letzten berbleibsel der Industriemoderne und des staatlichen Unternehmertums in Ostmitteleuropa.