Title: Eastern Europe and the Third World: The Expanding Relationship
Abstract: The countries of communist Eastern Europe have entered the decade of the 1980s with far less optimism than they had a decade ago. Their position in both the international political and economic systems is currently in a state of significant change. The first half of the past decade witnessed a substantial increase in political and economic relations with the industrialized countries of the West as part of the growing detente in East—West relations. This growth in contacts with the West represented an integral part of policies aimed at expanding the economic capabilities of the European communist states by means of increasing imports of high-level technology from the West. However, a number of serious economic problems, compounded by the deterioration in Soviet—American relations, have required the leaders of these countries to reconsider at least some aspects of their relationships with the outside world. Their inability to expand exports to match imports, with the result of serious balance of payments problems; their heavy and growing dependence on raw materials imports, and the recent staggering rise in the price of some of those materials, in particular petroleum; and the failure of past technology imports to affect significantly the level of labor productivity in most of the East European countries have all required East European governments to reduce their optimistic predictions for future economic growth and to reassess their economic relations with various groups of countries.KeywordsForeign PolicyEconomic RelationCentral Intelligence AgencyEast European CountryInternational Economic OrderThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Publication Year: 1983
Publication Date: 1983-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 2
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