Aleksandra Sznajder

My research proposal is motivated by an empirical puzzle concerning the timing of privatization of the largest steel mills in the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. As the project searches for an answer to the question of why privatizations of key steel mills to foreign investors in Romania and Slovakia preceded those in the Czech Republic and Poland, it examines from a comparative perspective the domestic politics of restructuring and privatization. It considers hypotheses concerning the effects of EU membership application on political calculus of decision makers, the effects of reform sequencing and of institutional and budgetary constraints. It also examines the role of post-communist socioeconomic institutionalization in bringing privatization about.