Radicalism versus Gradualism: An Analytical Survey of the Transition Strategy Debate

Academic debate on a transition strategy for former socialist economies continues even a quarter century after the collapse of the communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In this paper, through an analytical survey of 137 preceding studies, we present an overall picture of the debate and examine the relationship between the debate attitudes and the literature attributes in related studies. We found that the radicalists maintain a consistent debate attitude from the viewpoints of time speed and policy sequence of economic transition, while the debate attitude of the gradualists is more diversified. We also found that there is another group of researchers that stays within the framework of the radicalism-versus-gradualism debate while at the same time keeping at arm's length from both the radicalists and the gradualists. In addition, our cross tabulation analysis and regression estimation of qualitative selection models provide interesting findings on the relationship between the debate attitudes and the literature attributes.