Privatization in Eastern Europe: is the state withering away?

Three years later in Eastern Europe, privatization is still talked about and seemingly pursued, but the results are mixed. In the broadest sense, privatization should be understood as a transfer of assets from the state to the private sector, accompanied by a radical reallocation of available productive resources, restructuring of the existing institutional setting in which production takes place, and the introduction of new methods of corporrate governance, freed from the most noxious kinds of political interference. While privatization in this sense could be expected to lead to far-reaching economic and social transformations, a mere transfer of title is unlikely to have such an effect. Indeed, it may sometimes be doubted whether, under the conditions of many postcommunist societies, it leads to any genuine structural changes or even to a meaningful modification of legal ownership. -from Authors