Liberalization and its consequences : a comparative perspective on Latin America and Eastern Europe 1. Introduction 2. Economic performance and the state in Latin America 3. Rethinking economic performance in Central and Eastern Europe 1870 1989 4. Economic transition in Eastern Europe 5. How much. does the past count 6. Hungarys post communist development in comparative perspective 7. Trajectories of East European transformation 8. Neo liberalism revisited in the light of the Brazilian crisis 9. The Russian oligarchs 10. Privatizing the commons 11. Privatizing and the public interest 12. The neo liberal experiment in Latin America 13. Institutions and property rights across time and space The essays in this volume describe analyse and compare the achievements and the failures of societies that adopted market based economies within a democratic polity after a long period of communist rule (Russia and Eastern Europe) or military authoritarianism (Latin America). Together they also trace the rocky course of liberal economic policies over the whole twentieth century