The Politics of Breaking Promises Across the Iron Curtain.

"The Politics of Breaking Promises Across the Iron Curtain" by Fritz Bartel explores the end of the Cold War and the rise of neoliberal capitalism. Bartel argues that both Eastern European socialist and Western capitalist governments based their postwar social contracts on rising living standards, but the economic fallout from the oil crises of the early 1970s led to a "race to break promises." Democratic capitalism proved more capable of imposing economic discipline than communism due to its greater political legitimacy. Bartel highlights the role of energy prices, international finance, and economic discipline in the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, emphasizing the influence of Western banks and bankers. The Soviet government prioritized fixing its own economy over ensuring the political stability of its allies, leading to a collision course with the International Monetary Fund. Eastern European communist governments accepted Western capital's conditions as a constraint on their rule, implementing painful adjustments and facing protests from citizens. Bartel's concept of "the politics of making and breaking promises" sheds light on the complex and tumultuous period, but questions remain about the beliefs of the populations and the specificities of different communist contexts. Overall, the book adds to our understanding of how global economic forces impacted domestic politics and the contingency of social contracts across the ideological divide. [Extracted from the article]