Beyond “Alternative Globalization” in Socialist Eastern Europe: A Critique of the Concept
By Béla Tomka
Research on the globalization of socialist Eastern Europe has become a thriving field within international historiography over the past decade.[1] At the same time, scholars have made ambitious efforts to develop new conceptual tools for identifying the distinctive features of globalization in socialist Eastern Europe. Some of these new concepts go beyond just examining the transnational ties of socialist states — they also make broader claims about globalization itself by suggesting that globalization is not a single, uniform process but rather one that unfolds in distinct, segmented ways. One example is the term of “halved globalisation”: the proponents of this concept argue that the world fractured into two distinct spheres — an increasingly interconnected capitalist West and a socialist bloc that distanced itself from the rest of the globe — thereby globalization consisted of two “halves”.[2] The same authors go so far as to claim that the process of globalization “split in two” in the decades after the Second World War.[3] Similarly, some scholars contend that socialist states underwent their “own” globalization, distinct from the Western-led process.[4]
The concept of “alternative globalization” fits within this perspective as well.[5] Among the various concepts used to define socialist globalization in Eastern Europe, this is the most thoroughly discussed in academic research[6] and it has received considerable positive reception in scholarship.[7] This approach introduces a profoundly new way of thinking about the topic by reshaping how we understand the dynamics and chronology of globalization in the region.[8] The popularity of the concept of “alternative globalization” calls for a thorough examination of the plausibility of this approach.

The term “alternative globalization” is used—in both academic literature and broader discourse—with multiple meanings.[9] Even when focusing solely on its academic treatment in the context of post-Second World War socialist countries and setting aside its political connotations, the term is applied quite inconsistently. The ambiguity of the concept is evident in the question marks that frequently appear after the phrase “alternative globalization” in titles and subtitles framing publications on the topic. Authors often interpret “alternative globalization” as a political and economic programme — an aspiration of state socialist countries to establish a form of globalization distinct from the Western-led model, though not necessarily one that was fully realised. Moreover, it has also been suggested that “the notion of alternative globalization suggests a critical rethinking of the history of Western-centred globalization in which events and actors in other parts of the world actually play an important role”.[10] That is, in this context, the concept serves as the backbone of a historiographical programme. However, an increasing number of scholars argue that alternative globalization was not just an aspiration but it reflects historical reality — at least for certain periods. According to James Mark, a leading proponent of the concept, Eastern European state socialist countries successfully built their own form of globalization, though this process came to an end in the 1980s and 1990s.[11]
In view of the ambiguity surrounding the term, it is worth examining what the adjective “alternative” actually means in the context of globalization. It can carry several different meanings: a) “alternative” may simply suggest that something differs from the usual in its characteristics; b) it may imply mutual exclusivity; c) it may denote parallelism; and d) it may signify substitution. When it comes to interpreting Eastern European globalization, the first meaning can be dismissed: if “alternative” simply indicates that the region’s globalization had unique characteristics, the term adds little analytical value and serves merely as a rhetorical device. The second option — mutual exclusivity between Eastern European globalization and globalization elsewhere — lacks empirical support: Eastern European socialist countries maintained ties not only with one another but also with the Global South and Western nations. While these relationships were often asymmetrical, they were not mutually exclusive. In fact, research shows that the region’s global connections — with both the West and other parts of the world — were deeply entangled.[12] Several researchers who favour the concept of “alternative globalization” actually contend that worldwide interconnections did indeed exist.[13] For similar reasons, the idea that Eastern Europe’s socialist countries participated in one of several parallel globalization processes is also implausible. The fourth potential interpretation suggests that Eastern European socialist countries forged new international relationships to make up for the limitations of their existing ties with the Western world and other regions. And indeed, this idea frequently appears in works that advocate for the notion of “alternative globalization”.[14]
The view that relations to the West could be substituted by connections with other parts of the globe surfaced in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. As the colonial system unravelled from the 1950s onward, a number of policymakers, academics, and cultural figures in Eastern Europe assumed their countries could forge international ties with the Third World to make up for their constrained links with the West. This vision was not one-sided. The Global South, too, saw an opportunity in forging partnership with Eastern Europe as a way to step away from former colonial countries. These new links were seen as a pathway to rapid technological progress and, in particular, industrialization in former colonies, while offering East European nations access to emerging markets, natural resources, and strategic geopolitical influence.[15]
The limits of the ties of the Global South with Eastern European socialist countries have been demonstrated by the related literature.[16] Eastern Europe developed closer ties with only a limited number of developing nations — primarily the so-called “countries of socialist orientation” like Algeria, Egypt, and Libya. This is why their economic relations with the Third World had only a minor impact on the globalization process — trade between all European socialist countries and the Global South never accounted for more than 1% of global trade.[17] Moreover, the flow of developmental aid provides evidence that this aspect of North–South relationship was not central to the Global South either: in the 1980s, the total development assistance arranged by all socialist countries for the Third World was only about one-tenth of what the West supplied to those regions.[18]

Eastern Europe’s connections with the Third World had little influence on the internationalization of these societies and on their broader social dynamics. Few people actually travelled to or engaged with the Global South. Beyond official government and institutional channels, interactions remained narrow. Just as Eastern European workers and specialists employed in the developing countries often experienced isolation, similar conditions applied to Third World workers and, to a lesser extent, students living in Eastern Europe.
Taking into account the empirical evidence, it is doubtful that the Eastern Bloc’s ties with the Third World effectively made up for its missing connections with the West.[19] This, in turn, calls into question whether the concept of “alternative globalization” truly reveals the nature of globalization in socialist Eastern Europe. The limits of the relationship between socialist countries and the Global South will not be discussed further, as I have addressed them elsewhere.[20] Rather, I will look into the plausibility of this concept on a more general level and propose alternative interpretations.
The globalization of the Eastern Bloc was undeniably tied to broader global trends. As in other parts of the world, it was driven by technological advancements, particularly in transport and telecommunications. These fields were largely shaped by Western innovations, as Eastern European socialist countries did not develop “alternative” technological pathways to drive globalization. Instead, they primarily borrowed and implemented Western technologies and innovations such as transistors, television, containerized shipping, and CNC metalworking. Moreover, interpreting globalization as a collection of distinct, largely isolated elements seems implausible, as this would significantly weaken the analytical value of the very notion. The term “globalization” is only a meaningful addition to the conceptual toolbox of social research if it emphasizes shared experiences, transplanetary flows, and worldwide interdependence. Globalization is inherently multidimensional, with its various aspects deeply interconnected and the actions of its diverse actors closely intertwined. As such, it is implausible to conceptualize globalization as a process that can be broken down into separate sections. Rather, the emphasis should be on the degree to which different entities participate in a shared, overarching process.
Based on these observations and the empirical evidence referred to above, globalization in socialist Eastern Europe cannot be regarded as an alternative process. Rather, we advocate an analytical approach that underlines, above all, the selectivity and unevenness of the globalization process in the region. In this context, “selectivity” highlights the act of making choices that shape globalization. “Unevenness”, in turn, highlights the disparities within the process. In a way, the two concepts are interrelated: selectivity in making choices can create unevenness in globalization outcomes.
Globalization is inherently uneven across its various dimensions; however, this unevenness was especially characteristic of the globalization that took place in socialist Eastern Europe. First, the process was geographically uneven. Ties among the countries of the region expanded significantly, while their connections with some regions of the Global South became more extensive than ever before. This expansion was partly driven by broader global trends that influenced other regions as well. Beyond the previously noted progress in transport and communication technologies, economic growth and the increasing complexity of the economy further heightened the demand for raw materials and other goods, frequently obtainable from distant regions. The preferential treatment of certain countries was often driven by clear political considerations. Conversely, connections in several other directions remained restricted and exhibited highly uneven development. This was especially the case for Western states, but it also applied to many countries in the Global South.
Secondly, the trajectory of globalization over time was also uneven. In the early post-Second World War period, the state socialist countries of Eastern Europe played only a limited role in the global trade boom, as they largely aimed for either national self-sufficiency or economic integration within COMECON. Over time, however, they gradually became more outward-oriented.
Thirdly, the shift to more intensive international cooperation occurred at varying speeds and to different extents across the socialist countries. During the 1970s and 1980s, for instance, Poland and Hungary were considerably more receptive to international economic and financial institutions, as well as to broader economic cooperation, than Czechoslovakia.
Fourthly, the imbalances and unevenness were also highly evident across different dimensions of globalization. In certain spheres of the economy, culture, and politics, the global influences on Eastern European socialist countries were significant and, from the mid-1950s onward, expanded more or less steadily. Popular culture serves as a clear example. Western popular music gained a broad following in the region from the 1960s onward and influenced numerous local artists across genres such as jazz, pop, and rock. Other aspects of Western youth culture — including hairstyles, fashion, and even shifts in sexual behaviour — also spread widely.[21] There were also instances of global transfers in certain economic sectors. Hungarian collective farms, for example, acquired entire American machinery complexes and technologies, adjusting them to the local economic and social environment.[22] By contrast, global connections developed at a more restrained pace in areas such as travel, migration, and access to information and consumer goods. A telling example is the availability of branded and high-quality Western consumer products — chocolates, cigarettes, cosmetics, or tape recorders — which were typically obtainable only through the black market or in exclusive shops catering to a privileged few, such as successful athletes or those receiving hard currency from relatives in Western countries.[23]

Blue General School, First Budapest Summer Dance School, Milagros
Desdunes, Dancer of the Cuba National Ballet, teaches Hungarian youth, 1984
Source: Fortepan / Budapest Tánciskola Archívuma.
Emphasising the uneven and selective character of socialist globalization offers analytical advantages beyond highlighting key features of the process in the Eastern European region. Most importantly, it acknowledges that globalization in the Eastern Bloc was intensive — at times and in certain dimensions. This perspective, therefore, helps bridge the gap between earlier interpretations that emphasized the isolation of Eastern European countries — largely overlooking their engagement with globalization — and more recent research, which tends to conceptualize globalization in Eastern Europe based on intensive changes in specific areas of the process.
The approach advocated here also aligns with various scholarly calls for a more nuanced interpretation of globalization in the Eastern Bloc.[24] It therefore rejects the notion of globalization as a one-sided, all-encompassing process driven solely by the capitalist West. In addition, it acknowledges Eastern European agency by recognising that state socialist countries actively pursued their own policy priorities. This interpretation not only understands that globalization under state socialism manifested with notable intensity in certain areas and periods but also allows for tracing the dynamics of the process. Furthermore, it offers an advantage over the concept of “alternative globalization” by remaining fully compatible with prevailing definitions of globalization, which highlight specific aspects of global flows, interdependence among different regions, and a growing worldwide awareness of these processes. This is far less true for the concept of “alternative globalization,” which struggles to account for the deepening of global interdependence in the post-war era.
Notes
[1] The most important scholarly contributions include Besnik Pula, Globalization under and after Socialism: The Evolution of Transnational Capital in Central and Eastern Europe (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018); James Mark, Bogdan C. Iacob, Tobias Rupprecht, and Ljubica Spaskovska, 1989: A Global History of Eastern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); James Mark, Artemy M. Kalinovsky, Steffi Mahrung, eds., Alternative Globalizations: Eastern Europe and the Postcolonial World (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2020); James Mark and Paul Betts, eds., Socialism Goes Global: the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Age of Decolonization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022); Ulf Engel, Frank Hadler, and Matthias Middell, eds., 1989 in a Global Perspective (Leipzig: Leipzig University Press, 2015); George Lawson, Chris Armbruster, and Michael Cox, eds., The Global 1989: Continuity and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Anna Calori, Anne-Kristin Hartmetz, Bence Kocsev, and Jan Zofka, eds., Between East and South: Spaces of Interaction in the Globalizing Economy of the Cold War (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2019); James Mark and Tobias Rupprecht, “The Socialist World in Global History: From Absentee to Victim to Co-Producer,” in The Practice of Global History: European Perspectives, ed. Matthias Middell (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 81–113.
[2] For “halved globalisation” (halbierte Globalisierung), see Jürgen Osterhammel and Niels P. Petersson. Geschichte der Globalisierung: Dimensionen, Prozesse, Epochen (München: C. H. Beck, 2003), 86–93., 98–99.
[3] Jürgen Osterhammel and Niels P. Petersson, Globalization: A Short History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 113.
[4] For “the socialist states’ own globalisation”, see Kevin Axe, Tobias Rupprecht, and Alice Trinkle, Peripheral Liberalism: New Perspectives on the History of the Liberal Script in the (Post-)Socialist World, SCRIPTS Working Paper No. 13. (Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, 2021), 14.
[5] Mark, Kalinovsky, and Marung, eds., Alternative Globalizations; Anna Calori, Anne-Kristin Hartmetz, Bence Kocsev, and Jan Zofka, “Alternative Globalization? Spaces of Economic Interaction between the »Socialist Camp« and the »Global South«,” in Between East and South: Spaces of Interaction in the Globalizing Economy of the Cold War, eds. Anna Calori, Anne-Kristin Hartmetz, Bence Kocsev, and Jan Zofka (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2019), 5.; Marcia C. Schenck, Immanuel R. Harisch, Anne Dietrich, and Eric Burton, “Introduction: Moorings and (Dis)Entanglements between Africa and East Germany during the Cold War,” in Eric Burton, Anne Dietrich, Immanuel Harisch, and Marcia Schenck, eds., Navigating Socialist Encounters: Moorings and (Dis)Entanglements between Africa and East Germany during the Cold War. (Munich: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2021), 10.
[6] Mark, Kalinovsky, Mahrung, eds., Alternative Globalizations: Eastern Europe and the Postcolonial World; Calori, Hartmetz, Kocsev, and Zofka, “Alternative Globalization? Spaces of Economic Interaction between the »Socialist Camp« and the »Global South«”.
[7] James Robertson, “The Socialist World in the Second Age of Globalization: An Alternative History?” Markets, Globalization and Development Review 3, no. 2 (2018), 1–7.; Jun Fujisawa, “Alternative Globalizations: Eastern Europe and the Postcolonial World,” Hungarian Historical Review 10, no. 1 (2021): 184–187.; Jelena Đureinović, “Book Review: Alternative globalizations: Eastern Europe and the Postcolonial World,” Studies of Transition States and Societies 12, no. 1 (2020): 90–91.; Markus Sattler, “Book Review: Alternative globalizations. Eastern Europe and the postcolonial world,” Eurasian Geography and Economics 62, no. 5-6 (2021): 772–775.
[8] Béla Tomka, Globalization in State Socialist East Central Europe: Looking beyond Dominant Narratives (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), 7–20.
[9] The term often carries a political meaning: “alternative globalization,” also known as “alter-globalization” or “the global justice movement”, refers to various social movements that seek global cooperation and interaction in order to resist the negative effects of what they consider neoliberal globalization. Arun Kumar Pokhrel, “Alterglobalization,” in Encyclopedia of Global Justice, ed. Deen K. Chatterjee (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), 30–35.; Luke Martell, “Alternative Globalization,” in Research Handbook on the Sociology of Globalization, eds. Christian Karner and Dirk Hofäcker (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2023), 217–224.
[10] Péter Apor, “Az alternatív globalizációról,” in Béla Tomka, Globalizáció Kelet-Közép-Európában a második világháború után: narratívák és ellennarratívák (Pécs: Kronosz, 2023), 111.
[11] James Mark, “The End of Alternative Spaces of Globalization? Transformations from the 1980s to the 2010s,” in Between East and South, 217.
[12] Randeria, Shalini and Eckert, Andreas, “Geteilte Globalisierung,” in Vom Imperialismus zum Empire. Nicht-westliche Perspektiven auf Globalisierung, Hg. Shalini Randeria and Andreas Eckert (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 2015), 9–33; Simo Mikkonen and Pia Koivunen, eds., Beyond the Divide: Entangled Histories of Cold War Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2015).
[13] Mark, Iacob, Rupprecht, and Spaskovska, 1989: A Global History of Eastern Europe; Mark, Kalinovsky, and Mahrung, eds., Alternative Globalizations; Mark and Betts, eds., Socialism Goes Global.
[14] Mark, Kalinovsky, Mahrung, eds., Alternative Globalizations: Eastern Europe and the Postcolonial World.; Mark and Betts, eds., Socialism Goes Global.
[15] Deepak Nayyar, “Economic Relations between Socialist and Third World Countries: An Introduction,” in Economic Relations between Socialist Countries and the Third World, ed. Deepak Nayyar (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1977), 1–17.
[16] Kristin Roth-Ey, “Introduction,” in Socialist Internationalism and the Gritty Politics of the Particular: Second-Third World Spaces in the Cold War, ed. Kristin Roth-Ey (London: Bloomsbury, 2023), 10.; Mikuláš Pešta, “The Expert Community: Expert Knowledge and Socialist Virtues–Czechoslovak Military Specialists in the Global South,” in Socialist Internationalism and the Gritty Politics of the Particular, 150–155; Zsombor Bódy, “Opening Up to the “Third World” or Taking a Detour to the “West”? The Hungarian Presence in Algeria from the 1960s to the 1980s,” Comparativ 33, no. 3 (2023): 377–399.
[17] Marie Lavigne, The Economics of Transition: From Socialist Economy to Market Economy (New York: Macmillan, 1995), 79.; on aid and developmental assistance, see also Sara Lorenzini, “Comecon and the South in the Years of Détente: a Study on East–South Economic Relations,” European Review of History/Revue européenne d’histoire 21, no. 2 (2014): 183–199.; Corinna R. Unger, International Development: A Postwar History (London: Bloomsbury, 2018); Stephen J. Macekura and Erez Manela, eds., The Development Century: A Global History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); David C. Engerman, The Price of Aid: The Economic Cold War in India (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018); Artemy M. Kalinovsky, “Sorting Out the Recent Historiography of Development Assistance: Consolidation and New Directions in the Field,” Journal of Contemporary History 56, no. 1 (2021): 227–239.; Sara Lorenzini, Global Development: A Cold War History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019; Béla Tomka, Globalization in State Socialist East Central Europe: Looking beyond Dominant Narratives (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), 21–73.
[18] Lavigne, The Economics of Transition: From Socialist Economy to Market Economy, 80. From the 1960s onwards, the Eastern European state socialist countries themselves considered it less and less their task to provide economic aid to the socialist-oriented countries of the Third World. For more on this, see László Csaba, Eastern Europe in the World Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 127–129.
[19] Béla Tomka, “Globalization in Socialist Eastern Europe: A Turn in Research and its Discontents,” European History Quarterly 53, no. 4 (2023): 685–696.
[20] Tomka, Globalization in State Socialist East Central Europe, 7–60.
[21] Anne E. Gorsuch and Diane P. Koenker, eds., The Socialist Sixties: Crossing Borders in the Second World (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2013); William Jay Risch, “Only Rock ’n’ Roll? Rock Music, Hippies, and Urban Identities in Lviv and Wrocław, 1965–1980,” in Youth and Rock in the Soviet Bloc: Youth Cultures, Music, and the State in Russia and Eastern Europe, ed. by William Jay Risch (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014), 81–99.; Sándor Horváth, “The Making of the Gang: Consumers of the Socialist Beat in Hungary,” in Youth and Rock in the Soviet Bloc, 101–115.
[22] Zsuzsanna Varga, The Hungarian Agricultural Miracle? Sovietization and Americanization in a Communist Country (Lanham: Lexington, 2021), 201–212.
[23] Paulina Bren, “Tuzex and the Hustler: Living It Up in Czechoslovakia,” in Paulina Bren and Mary Neuburger eds., Communism Unwrapped: Consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 27–48.; Annina Gagyiova, Vom Gulasch zum Kühlschrank. Privater Konsum zwischen Eigensinn und Herrschaftssicherung im sozialistischen Ungarn, 1956–1989 (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 2020), 112–123; Béla Tomka, Austerities and Aspirations: A Comparative History of Growth, Consumption and Quality of Life in East Central Europe since 1945 (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2020), 173–174.
[24] Calori, Hartmetz, Kocsev and Zofka, “Alternative Globalizatons?” 1–31.
About the Author
Béla Tomka is Professor at the Department of Contemporary History, University of Szeged. His major research area is the social and economic history of Hungary and East Central Europe in the 20th century with a special emphasis on international comparisons. He is the head of the History of Globalization Research Group established by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, University of Szeged and Eötvös University Budapest (ELTE). Tomka is the author of 16 books, including A Social History of Twentieth-Century Europe (Routledge, 2013), Austerities and Aspirations: A Comparative History of Growth, Consumption and Quality of Life in East Central Europe since 1945 (Central European University Press, 2020), and Globalization in State Socialist East Central Europe: Looking Beyond Dominant Narratives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).
Citation: Béla Tomka, Beyond “Alternative Globalization” in Socialist Eastern Europe: A critique of the Concept, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 08.04.2025, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/56507
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