Mitchell A. Orenstein is Professor and Chair of Russian and East European Studies at University of Pennsylvania and Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. His sole-authored and co-authored works on the political economy and international affairs of Central and Eastern Europe have won numerous prizes.
His most recent book, Taking Stock of Shock (Oxford University Press, 2021), co-authored with Prof. Kristen Ghodsee, evaluates the social consequences of the 1989 revolutions that ended communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It explores two theories: 1. After a short recession, everyone has done fine and achieved a new level of prosperity, and 2. 1989 unleased an economic catastrophe of enormous proportions that requires a strong hand to put right. Unexpectedly, Taking Stock of Shock finds strong support for both theories. While many people experienced a short dip followed by increased prosperity, a majority suffered an economic decline six times greater on average than the Great Depression. Meanwhile, Western international organizations tried to convince everyone that all was well, creating a bizarre political, economic, and social legacy of transition that remains to be overcome.
Orenstein is also the author of The Lands in Between: Russia vs. The West and the New Politics of Hybrid War (Oxford University Press, 2019), a study of how intensifying geopolitical conflict has shaped politics in the lands in between Russia and the West. It documents the “civilizational choice” faced by these countries, the resulting sharp polarization of politics, and the rise of corrupt power brokers who balance between both sides. While this politics is most evident in the lands in between, it is increasingly prevalent throughout Europe and the West. We are all lands in between.
Prior to this, Orenstein co-authored From Triumph to Crisis: Neoliberal Economic Reform in Postcommunist Countries (Cambridge University Press, 2018) with Prof. Hilary Appel. Based on newly available archives from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, From Triumph to Crisis develops a new theory of the political economy of transition that explains the enduring triumph of neoliberalism in the region from 1989-2008, as capital-starved countries sought to signal their openness to investment with policy reforms. From Triumph to Crisis won the Laura Shannon Prize Silver Medal of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies in 2021.
Mitchell has participated actively in my prior Institute, and particularly inspired my students during my last year at Tufts as my last Outward Bound speaker, where we created the cohesive team necessary to enact a very complicated year. (Here is the program of the 2015-2016 EPIIC Symposium: The Future of Europe. You can find Mitch on page 40.) He has also conducted a recent lecture on Ukraine to my Indian students.
Mitchell is also a wonderful personal friend, and a relative on my wife, Iris’s side.
I will always remember Mitch for his wonderful, direct support of me joyfully retaining nearly ten thousand volumes of my personal library when I retired, which Iris was eager to have me discard. He argued persuasively against that idea, with the wonderful phrase that such a library represented one’s “intellectual autobiography.”