Collision and Collusion
Subtitle: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe
Edition: Updated edition
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; Palgrave
Published: January 13, 2001
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 304
ISBN-13: 9780312238285
Subjects: Politics/International Relations; International Relations - General; Current Affairs; Politics / Current Events; Public Policy - Economic Policy; Business & Economics / Economic Conditions; International; American; Politics - Current Events
First sentence: IN THE FALL OF 1989, a mood of triumph swept West and East alike.
Description: When the Soviet Union's communist empire collapsed in 1989, a mood of euphoria took hold in the West and in Eastern Europe. The West had won the ultimate victory-it had driven a silver stake through the heart of communism. Its next planned step was to help the nations of Eastern Europe to reconstruct themselves as democratic, free-market states, and full partners in the First World Order. But that, as Janine Wedel reveals in this gripping volume, was before Western governments set their poorly conceived programs in motion. Collision and Collusion tells the bizarre and sometimes scandalous story of Western governments' attempts to aid the former Soviet block. He shows how by mid-decade, Western aid policies had often backfired, effectively discouraging market reforms and exasperating electorates who, remarkably, had voted back in the previously despised communists. Collision and Collusion is the first book to explain where the Western dollars intended to aid Eastern Europe went, and why they did so little to help. Taking a hard look at the bureaucrats, politicians, and consultants who worked to set up Western economic and political systems in Eastern Europe, the book details the extraordinary costs of institutional ignorance, cultural misunderstanding, and unrealistic expectations.