This book is an exploration of the economic history of the German Democratic Republic, with an emphasis upon its confrontation by and contribution towards economic and military competition on the world stage. Beginning with an analysis of the Soviet bloc as a state-capitalist formation, the GDR's economic history is charted, with detailed examinations of the challenges to Soviet-style autarky that were posed by the globalising world market, as well as of GDR policymakers' attempts to use Western imports and credits as a 'whip' to spur growth. The book's central section consists of an exploration of the ambivalent attitudes of East German policymakers and industrialists towards their West German counterparts in the 1980s, as the whip was transformed into an ever-tightening noose of debt. Here, a prodigious range of secondary sources as well as hitherto unpublished documents from the archives of the old regime are drawn upon to document the means by which relative economic decline and dependency upon Western institutions came to constrain the options available to the East German nomenklatura. Finally, this study analyses the political economy of the 1989 revolution and unification and of post-unification Eastern Germany. Contents: Creation and demise of the GDR/Soviet Bloc - Nature of 'Soviet-type economies' - Globalisation and the Soviet Bloc - Inter-German economic and political relations - Gorbachev's reforms - impact on East Germany - Roots of the revolution of 1989 - Political economy of post-unification eastern Germany. The Author: Gareth Dale teaches international political economy, international relations and German politics at the University of Wales, Swansea. He has published widely on German politics and history and is joint editor, with Mike Cole, of The European Union and Migrant Labour. «... 'Between State Capitalism and Globalisation'... opens with a long discussion of capitalism and the global economy which has value for all of us and is the strongest published attempt to engage in debates on state and capital from a state capitalist perspective. [...] it should be compulsory reading for anyone interested in these issues.» (Mike Haynes, International Socialism)
«Gareth Dale's excellent book on the history of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) discusses in detail the international circumstances of this socialist dictatorship's creation, existence and decline.» (Jeannette Madarász, European History Quarterly)
«Dales Buch...ist ein 'Muss' für alle, die die Funktionsweise und den Untergang der DDR jenseits der festgeklopften Argumentationslinien der etablierten DDR-Forschung zu begreifen versuchen.» (Jörg Roesler, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft)
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