Taking Stock of Shock
The evidence on who actually gained and lost from the transition.
Summary
Kristen Ghodsee and Mitchell Orenstein assess what happened to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in the thirty years after 1989, and their method is the argument. They compare what three bodies of evidence say: economic data, demographic and public health data, and public opinion surveys.
The economic evidence, dominated by gross domestic product and by institutional indicators, generally shows recovery and convergence, particularly in Central Europe. The demographic and public health evidence shows something else: an extraordinary mortality crisis in Russia, Ukraine and other post-Soviet states during the 1990s, with male life expectancy falling by years, together with population decline through emigration and falling birth rates across most of the region. Public opinion surveys show substantial and durable pluralities in many countries saying life was better under socialism.
The authors argue that these bodies of evidence have been produced and read by different disciplines that do not talk to each other, and that the economic account has dominated the policy literature while the demographic and survey evidence has been treated as anomalous. Their conclusion is that the transition produced highly divergent outcomes, with the Central European and Baltic states doing well and much of the former Soviet Union and the Balkans not, and that aggregate assessments of transition conceal this. Ghodsee has written sympathetically about aspects of state socialism elsewhere and critics treat the book as tendentious; the assembly of the demographic evidence alongside the economic is nonetheless a genuine contribution.
Key takeaways 7
- Economic, demographic and survey evidence about the postcommunist transition point in different directions and are produced by disciplines that do not read each other.
- Male life expectancy in Russia and Ukraine fell by years during the 1990s, which constitutes a mortality crisis with few peacetime precedents.
- Population decline through emigration and falling birth rates has been the region's most consistent outcome across three decades.
- Substantial pluralities in several countries report that life was better under socialism, and the finding is durable rather than nostalgic noise.
- Transition outcomes diverged enormously, with Central Europe and the Baltics converging while much of the former Soviet Union did not.
- Aggregate assessments of the transition conceal the divergence and are therefore uninformative about any particular country.
- The authors argue that the speed of reform correlates less with outcomes than the literature claims, once non-economic measures are included.
Who should read it
Analysts of transition economies who want the demographic and survey evidence set alongside the economic record rather than treated separately.
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