Tranzicioni dhe riprodhimi i elitës në Shqipëri: Hipoteza të testueshme për një sintezë teorike
Transition and Elite Reproduction in Albania: Competing Theories and Testable Hypotheses

Summary/Abstract: As state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union began to crumble, a lively theoretical debate emerged concerning the potential beneficiaries of the transition from socialism to capitalism and about the fate of the old communist elite. In this article we present three competing theories offered in this debate: the political capitalism theory, the market transition theory, and the technocratic-managerial class theory. We argue that all three theories assumed that capitalism was a single destination and that all former socialist societies would travel on a single path towards this destination. Such assumptions have not been supported by empirical data. We attempt to develop a synthesis of these theories in a theory of postcommunist managerialism as a viable alternative, suggesting that instead of a single theory of transition from socialism to capitalism and of the reproduction of the elites in postcommunist societies, what is needed is rather a theory of comparative capitalisms.

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