Accidental Occidental

"The book's merits are to be found in the distinct tone of an experienced policy-maker who precisely sheds any responsibility for neutrality in favour of pragmatic relevance and effective deliverance. It is in this way usefully demonstrating the operative assumptions of EU and Western economic policy-making, but perhaps more acutely than critical IR is used to."—Europe-Asia Studies

"Bokros recognizes that functioning market institutions have been consistently the outcome of an open public space and an advanced civil society. This is the area where culture can play a transformative role. It can guarantee that the lands between the German- and the Russian-speaking spaces will be occidental, i.e. part of Western Europe, but not accidentally any more. A very interesting book written by a scholar who combines the rigor of the academic with the focus of the policy-maker. It offers a rounded and useful public policy analysis of central planning, market transitions and the institutional challenges ahead."—Journal of Economics

"Accidental Occidental is an inspirational enterprise and a thought-provoking book. One of its greatest benefits is its firm insistence on the relevance of path-dependency. According to Lajos Bokros, the regime change and the events of today can only be digested by understanding the features and the logic of the socialist system, as all of us in Central and Eastern Europe still carry its legacy in our mentality and behaviour."—Society and Economy

"Lajos Bokros is a prominent academic economist and an extremely experienced practitioner of fiscal and market reforms, not only in his native Hungary but also—as an advisor—in many other transition countries. This rare combination of skills has allowed him to write a very interesting book, based on a massive knowledge and a clear analysis. I recommend it not only to the readers in the post-socialist countries but also to those in the West as his book contains important lessons about the value of free markets and the dangers of statism."—Leszek Balcerowicz