Divergence Among Eastern European Countries in Economic Performance - Essay Example

College How can the divergence in Economic performance Among Eastern European countries be explained? Eastern European countries include Serbia, Kosovo, Russia, Czech Republic, Albania, Croatia and several others. These countries are popularly known for their unity in the historical era of communism and due to their locations and political history. Russia was the mainland for the communism and among the Eastern European countries, Russia is the superpower. These countries worked together as a time before the world war two and cold war and partly after the wars until their fall. Communism was a set of governance that dominated the East in comparison to the West which was the USA that employed Capitalism. After the world war two, the capitalism and communism ideologies of economic governance emerged. It is due to these two ideologies that the countries in Eastern Europe merged to campaign for the spread of communism in the other parts of the world. Communism involved the management of the economy through the government while capitalism involved democracy of the people to choose their government and work separately towards a common goal. Following their different philosophies, the cold war emerged. It is through the cold war that countries in Eastern Europe had to decide on remaining loyal to their communism ideology or to go neutral. Few countries for instance Serbia went neutral during the cold war. One of the reasons that explain the divergence in economic performance in Eastern Europe was the cold war disparities where some countries remained neutral and thus lost no economic bonds with neither of the two superpowers, USA and USSR. The countries that remained loyal to each of the two continued to acquire economic resources in terms of funds from both the countries and this was a major blow to the communists’ countries after the end of the cold war. Capitalism took control of the other parts of the world and emerged victorious by gathering support from the world at large while the communists lost resources during their campaigns for their ideology. Following the loss of resources to other countries, the communists suffered an economic recession after the cold war especially small countries that depended on the great Russia for wealth and funding. However for the countries that remained neutral during the war, they escaped the recession as they would still acquire funds and conduct investments with the allies of USSR. In addition, the government of the Serbians who were the most neutral members of Eastern Europe continued with a stable running of their economic, social and political systems. The Serbians, with help of USA achieved greater heights of economic success compared to the other countries in the East hence the huge difference in the economic performance of the communists and the Serbians. The USSR being a superpower was now inferior to the US after losing the fight over the two ideologies. However, the USSR did not suffer greatly economically as the inferior nations since it still had influence and remnants of resources that were not incorporated in the campaign for communism. Therefore, the USSR and Serbia were at an average situation and the economic recession did not hit them as hard as the other small countries. An additional factor that caused the rift in the economic performance of the Eastern Europe countries is the health systems of the countries. This is a social factor that contributed greatly of the disparities in economies in that a huge amount of money was invested in the health sector leading to instabilities of the other sectors of the economy. The economy of USSR supported the health and well being of its citizens and those of neighboring countries and consequently funds were shifted and the recession took tall in the country. The diseases of the patients require more medicine and resources in to the health industry which the government could not manage at that instance. Furthermore the smaller countries like Croatia and Kosovo did not handle the Health sector with the necessary resources leading to loss of lives and widening the gap in the economies of most Eastern Europe countries. The Eastern European countries came up with the idea of ending communism and going independent. Each country sort to solve its own problems and economic issues and blames on the recession was on the communist ideology. This decision began when the Slovenia and Croatia governments. They both voted on going separately in governance and a majority of their citizens voted for independence due to the recession that claimed most of their jobs and economic wealth. Through the independence of countries, each worked solely and their successes were determined by their efforts. This brought a significant difference in the economies of all countries. The Serbs were still on the lead in their economy and continued to acquire support from the USA government. The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 led to destruction of European governments and resulted to East and west Europe. The Eastern European countries further conducted the division of their side through constitutional boundaries. This move attributed to the loss of trust and unity in the Eastern Europe and ethnicity started building up among the countries. The ethnic wars brought about the economic disparities especially between the Serbs and the Croats. These two countries had a similar ethnic origin but after the division of countries through structural systems, rivalry arose and they both aimed to acquire superiority over the other. After the ethnic disparities, ethnic wars resulted and this caused loss of lives and resources in Eastern Europe giving the weak countries a hard time to start over and keep up with the rest of Europe and the world at large. Unemployment of citizens weakened the countries and they could not obtain help from their neighbors due to the resentment they felt towards each other. The Serbs dominating Eastern Europe after USSR sourced tension throughout Europe as they actively associated with the communists’ allies and adopted their ideologies. After a long struggle by the communists to seek economic resuscitation, they opted to join the Serbs and use the modern capitalism strategy of the USA. This took time as the Europeans suffered a great deal of pride to use the same ideology that they had once opposed. However, not all the countries in Eastern Europe followed suit towards capitalism. The USSR remained loyal to their ideology of controlling the economy through entire authority of the government. The USA continued to spread their ideology even to their opponents. This factor signified superiority of the USA over the USSR. The USA gained dominance over the whole world except the small countries which remained loyal to USSR. Despite most countries adopting the capitalism ideology, the strategy took long to yield considerable economic results and thus the existence of the difference in economic performance. After the failure of communism to dominate the world, the Eastern European countries created parties in their government and shifted from a one government system. The parties were formed to give each ethnic group in a country a chance to represent in governance and the popular party would win the elections hence deciding their leaders. This form of governance that included multiparty elections was new to the Eastern European countries thus were difficult to work within its earlier stages. This prompted the countries to spend more time on politics and lost focus on their economies. However, countries like Serbia did not engage too much in politics and their focus on the economy put them on the top of the list regarding economic development, a sector that was poor managed in the politically swayed countries. Multiparty elections put national interest of individual countries at a spotlight thus this promoted strives for division and their loss for communism. All countries that opted to hold multiparty elections based on democratic rights of their citizens portrayed their loss of hope on communism as well as the earlier governance. The elections were a clear evidence that communism was slowly fading away especially failure of USSR. The citizens who participated in the elections did not vote for aspirants who wanted to continue and stabilize the communist ideology. They lost in the elections and as the saying goes “if you cannot beat them, join them”. Most of the leaders turned their back on the ensuring communism is not eradicated by their own lost confidence and joined capitalism and democratic form of leadership. This focus on politics further widened the economic gap in Eastern European countries. Another factor that explains the difference in the economies of Eastern European countries is due to the death of president Tito of Yugoslavia. President Tito worked tirelessly to promote communist ideology in all parts of the country and his death was a huge blow to the Eastern European countries. The death brought about tensions in Yugoslavia and Serbia. Unity became less important and the people of Serbia wanted to wholly support capitalism by following democratic form of governance. During that time, the small countries like Kosovo were left with no power or resources to fight the Serbs. The land resources in the boundaries surfaced disparities as Serbs took in their possession the wealthier share and left Kosovo with the least resourceful areas. The lack of equality in resource allocation contributed to the consequent economic divergence of the Eastern European countries. The tensions due to political and social differences resulted into war breakouts. Countries fought each other as they now had difference in ideologies. Some remained loyal to communism while the majority adopted the capitalist ideology. Due to these, wars erupted and the repercussions were unbearable especially for the poor countries which had no resources for the war or for survival before and after the wars. The main countries in which war prevailed greatly due to ethnic tensions include Slovenia and Bosnia. After the war, the mass destruction of property and loss of resourceful people caused severe damage to their economies as they had to rebuild the better part of the economy from scratch with few people and inadequate resources. In conclusion, it is crystal clear that the divergence of the Eastern Europe economies was greatly influenced by the failure of USSR to spread communism and win over their allies’ capitalism ideology. The differences that emerged after the communism fail, were as a result of each country aiming to protect their national interest instead of the whole of Eastern Europe. The Serbs promoted rivalry even after being neutral during the cold war by working hand in hand with the USA without protecting their neighboring countries from recessions. Ethnicity and status quo negatively impacted on the economies of individual countries as well as the political wars. The divergence of economies in Eastern Europe was due to the disparities in power, ideologies and lack of unity in all the communists’ countries. Bibliography CRESCENZI, R., & PERCOCO, M. (2013). Geography, Institutions and Regional Economic Performance. Dordrecht, Springer. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=1082678. DELLA POSTA, P., & TALANI, L. S. (2011). Europe and the financial crisis. New York, Palgrave Macmillan. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=713276. KURAN, T. (2011). The long divergence: how Islamic law held back the Middle East. Princeton, Princeton University Press. NOWOTNY, E., MOOSLECHNER, P., & RITZBERGER-GRU?NWALD, D. (2010). The euro and economic stability focus on Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=599700. OKEY, R. (2004). The demise of Communist East Europe: 1989 in context. London, Arnold. PICKLES, J. (2008). 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