Peripheralization and Catching Up in Eastern Europe in Historical Perspective

Starting from the historical roots of Eastern European peripheralization and orientalization in the framework of the unfolding unequal division of labour in Europe since the 16th century, the article is discussing concepts and trajectories of "catching-up" between 1867 and 2004. Both associative dependent integration with the world-economic cores and self-reliant national or regional integration can be observed. The evaluation departs from four historical moments, 1867 (Austro-Hungarian Compromise), 1918, 1945 and 1989 with an outlook on the new geopolitical dividing lines and alliances after the dissolution of Comecon 1991 and the beginning of EU-enlargement towards Eastern Europe in 2004. Strategies, successes and limits are discussed in front of the interest of Western powers and Russia as well as geopolitical moments and cycles, offering opportunities and restrictions for governments to improve their national economy and international performance. In spite of undeniable upgrading processes in some periods, catching-up has been overshadowed by four fundamental traps: the growth trap, the national trap, the debt trap and the militarization trap, occuring at specific moments of the process, allowing to identify cycles of catching-up. Finally, as catching-up has been reproducing dependency and peripheralization in new forms, the concept of catching-up has to be reconsidered.