The Political-Economic Foundations of Slovakia's Dependent Growth Model

Abstract

In observing several Central and Eastern European Union countries facing systemic challenges to their dependent growth models, most notably Hungary and Poland, the resilience of foreign-dependent and export-led growth in Slovakia remains puzzling, especially in the context of relatively high levels of socioeconomic disintegration. Failing to identify the systemic distinctions of Slovakia's GM growth model against the backdrop of the broader political economy of the Visegrad region, this chapter seeks to explain the apparent differences through the politics of growth model approach, adjusted for the purposes of advanced peripheral economies. It is argued that an important explanans to the resilience of foreign-dependent growth in Slovakia can be traced back to the unexpected constellation of neoliberal forces governing in the early 2000s and their implementation of avant-garde neoliberal policies aimed at outbidding regional competitors in foreign investment attraction. Facing growing socioeconomic discontent and anticipating that national populists would assume power, the outgoing neoliberal government tied the hands of its successors by committing to a euro adoption strategy, which the subsequent administration was unable to reverse. Consequently, the lasting resilience of Slovakia's growth model lies in the interactions between a cross-class enduring domestic growth coalition with a trans-coalitional commitment to catering to the needs of transnational manufacturing capital on the one hand, and external constraints, most notably membership in the European Monetary Union (EMU), on the other.

Citation

Szabó, J. (2024), "The Political-Economic Foundations of Slovakia's Dependent Growth Model", Augustín, M., Jančovič, P. and Sergi, B.S. (Ed.) Modeling Economic Growth in Contemporary Slovakia (Entrepreneurship and Global Economic Growth), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 161-177. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83549-454-720241012