Maria Csanádi (DSc) is a research advisor at the Institute of Economics — 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).

Based  on the model and its Chinese specifics, her further studies involved deeper empirical analysis of the Chinese transformation period, and the adaptation of the system to different external and domestic shocks and their consequence on transformation. Further studies were carried out on the systemic background of investment overheating and local indebtedness; systemic background of the selectivity in resource distribution and enterprise behavior; systemic background of corruption and anti-corruption campaigns. She disseminated her studies from 1989 to date, giving lectures at several universities and research institutes in the USA, UK, Japan, China (Beijing, Nanqing, Shanghai, Heilongjiang, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Zhengzhou), Taiwan, Singapore,  Hong Kong, Italy, Germany, and Poland.

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)  titled: Uncertainty in the transition. Post-communism in Hungary. EEPS, 7 : 2 pp. 240-275. , 36 p. (1993)

Curriculum Vitae