The Role of the Hungarian Government in East-West Economic Relations

Abstract

Had the liberal perspective of the early 1970s on international political economy proved right, we would now be witness to a world economic theatre in which “coalitions are formed transnationally and transgovernmentally, [and] the potential role of international institutions in political bargaining is greatly increased”.²⁾ Had the neo-realist perspective of the early 1980s come to predict correctly what we were facing, we would now be enmeshed in various kinds of economic warfare waged by desperately mercantilist states, small and large. Both perspectives were mistaken and yet, paradoxically, both of them were able to depict substantive parts and trends of the economic world which we are heading for towards the end of this century. It would be both commonplace and euphemistic to suggest that this will be one in which the relevant processes are contradictory and rarely unidirectional.