Abstract

In 1989, when the communist system that had predominated for more than 40 years in central and eastern Europe and for more than 70 years in the Soviet Union began to collapse, few could have imagined the extent of the upheaval that would hit people’s lives in the following 20 years. To say that transition has had a profound effect on ordinary individuals in this region is both a cliché and an understatement. The ‘transition recession’ that all countries suffered in the early 1990s caused widespread hardship, poverty and unemployment. The subsequent recovery and period of strong economic growth in the second decade, combined with increasing political and economic integration of many countries into global structures, created new opportunities and better living standards for many. The economic crisis that hit the region with full force in 2009 has been a serious setback. While a partial recovery has taken place in 2010 and 2011 in most countries, the global outlook as of mid-December 2011 is highly uncertain and a return to recession cannot be ruled out. Encouragingly, however, few of the reforms introduced during the transition have been reversed.