Arms Industry Transformation And Integration: The Choices Of East Central Europe Hardcover

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Yudit Kiss

The defence industry was one of the pillars of the command economy system in East Central Europe. After the end of the cold war the sector went through dramatic changes: it was radically downsized, reorganized and restructured according to the needs of the emerging new socio-economic systems. One of the major factors that shaped this adjustment was the enlargement of NATO and the European Union and the prospect of integration into these two organizations. The military establishments and defence industries became principal actors in the integration process, which helped them to acquire political legitimization and new economic resources. At the same time, integration presented unexpected challenges and constraints for the regions restructuring defence industry. This book presents a comparative analysis of the defence industries of six East Central European countries-Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia-describing how they adjusted to the changed political and economic environment in both the domestic and international contexts. After the cold war, arms makers in East Central Europe found themselves confronting a situation like that faced by many of today's industrial producers: a drastic change of the economic, political and social environment. Their experiences provide valuable lessons for governments and companies in the post-2008 global economy.

9780199271733

English

Oxford University Press

24-Jun-14

454

Yudit Kiss (Hungary) is an economist. She received her PhD from Karl Marx University of Economics, Budapest, in 1989. Since 1992 she has worked as an independent researcher, based in Geneva. From 1993 to 1995 she studied conversion and defence industry restructuring under a MacArthur Foundation grant. Her publications include The Defence Industry in East-Central Europe: Restructuring and Conversion (OUP 1997), Regional and Employment Consequences of the Defence Industry Transformation in East Central Europe (International Labour Office, 1999), Small Arms and Light Weapons Production in Eastern, Central and Southeast Europe (Small Arms Survey, 2004) and East-Central European arms industries: between consolidation and crisis, Contemporary Security Policy (August 2011).