Opening up the Black Box: Transformation Specifics through Enterprise Entry and Exit in China

Time:       2018/10/25    9:00-10:30

Location: New Main Building 1610

Speaker: Maria Csanádi, Research advisor at the Institute of Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Ferenc Gyuris, Assistant Professor of Geography at the Department of Regional Science at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest (Hungary).

Maria Csanádi (DSc) is a research advisor at the Institute of Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences — her Phd is in political science. Her main research interest is the comparative political economy of communist systems both on empirical and on theoretical grounds. She has constructed a bottom-up comparative model called Interactive Party-state (IPS) model on the self-similar characteristics of the structure and dynamics of self-reproduction, dynamic traps and transformation of party-state (communist) systems based on the power network formed by the dependency and interest promotion relationship of party- state- and economic decision-makers. Within the framework of this model, she also designed the different patterns of power distribution that leads to different dynamics of operation and different sequence, speed and conditions of transformation.

This IPS model serves also as a device for her empirical analysis of these systems both in Hungary and China. Her book “Party-states and their Legacies in Post-communist Transformation” was published in Hungarian (1995), English (1997) and Chinese (2002). Her other book titled “Self-consuming Evolutions” describes the model in its whole complexity and demonstrates its functioning as an empirical analytical tool through three case-studies (Romania, Hungary and China). The book was published in English (2006) and in Chinese (2008).

She disseminated her studies since 1989 to date in several American, English, Chinese, Singapore and Japanese universities and research instititutions as well as in Hong Kong.

Her papers were published in journals like Social Research, Behavioral Science, Communist Economies and Economics of Transformation, Journal of World Economy and Politics, Journal of Chinese Economic and Busiess Studies, East European Politics and Society. Paper published in this latter in 1993 (co-authored by V.J. Bunce) stood as the first among the most cited papers for about 18 years.

Ferenc Gyuris is Assistant Professor of Geography at the Department of Regional Science at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest (Hungary). After studying Geography at the same institution and at Humboldt University in Berlin, he received his master’s degree at ELTE in 2008. He obtained his PhD in Geography at Heidelberg University (Germany) in 2012. As visiting scholar he spent two research periods in the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, Leipzig, and one in the Gotha Research Center of Erfurt University (both in Germany). In 2015 he received the Junior Prima Award, the most prestigious scientific prize in Hungary for young researchers in all disciplines, financed by the Hungarian Development Bank. In 2016 he obtained the Excellence Award of the Rector of ELTE.

His current research interests include regional and urban inequality, geographies of Communism and post-Communist transition, and geographies of the production and utilization of knowledge. He has written more than 50 papers, published in English, Hungarian, Chinese, German, and Russian, on topics related to these fields. He is author of the book “The Political Discourse of Spatial Disparities: Geographical Inequalities Between Science and Propaganda” (Springer, 2014). His other recent publications in English include several book chapters in Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge and Springer titles as well as in “The International Encyclopedia of Geography” of the American Association of Geographers (published with Wiley in 2017) and articles in peer-reviewed international journals (including Q1). He teaches courses on concepts in human geography, spatial disparities, and thematic mapping. He has given 64 papers at scientific conferences, including 31 presentations outside Hungary, in 11 countries. He has also held 25 lectures and 2 full courses at universities abroad, in China, Estonia, France, Germany, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

He is editorial board member of the journal “Hungarian Geographical Bulletin” and series advisory editor of the Springer book series “Historical Geography and Geosciences”. He also has been reviewer of manuscripts submitted to the Q1 journals “Regional Studies”, “Third World Quarterly” and “World Development”.