نبذة مختصرة : Since 1989 Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) have been characterized by an unprecedented transformation dynamic. The interplay between state and market was fundamentally redesigned within shortest time. Facing high economic and political pressure, these countries also had to rebuild their welfare states. At the core of this stood the renovation of what used to be the key socialist steering mechanism: the labour market. What is the nature of the emerging capitalist welfare after 20 years of transformation? Starting point of this dissertation is the fact that today, despite their common historical and socialist welfare experience, labour market regimes in CEECs show considerable variation. Although all CEECs have indeed established similar formal institutions based on historical experience, the political effectiveness of these institutions markedly differs. The first part of my comparative policy analysis examines the labour market transformation in the cases of Poland and the Czech Republic. Unlike the fairly rapid formal institutional change towards the Bismarck model, many lower level reforms have occurred in marginal and country-specific steps, recombining historical traditions, communist legacies and marketization trends. Elements of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ frames of reference coexisted and produced a mix. A central finding of this dissertation is that these new labour market regimes can be called consolidated hybrids. Moreover, country- specific variations have emerged: the Czech labour market regime shows higher decommodification, meaning stronger individual autonomy from the market. By contrast, the Polish labour market is characterized by stronger marketization, combined with paternalist elements. The second part of the dissertation examines the factors accounting for this variation. Linked to actor-centred institutionalist explanatory variables, the hypotheses focus on the interplay of domestic and external factors. Both countries share comparable institutional legacies and similar external ...
Processing Request
No Comments.