Europeanization Varieties Of Capitalism And Economic Performance In Central And Eastern Europe

By combining insights from Europeanization, globalization, varieties of capitalism, and policy transfer literature, this book reconceptualizes the dynamics taking place during the EU enlargement process and makes a major contribution to the understanding of the relationships between institutional transformation and economic performance.

Europeanization has often been conceived as a top-down process, necessitating implementation and adjustment at the national level. However, Europeanization can also be conditioned by bottom-up national initiatives. While recent endeavors in comparative political economy have emphasized the resilience of coordinated market economies, few detailed empirical studies have examined to date exactly how different European systems of political-economic governance cope with and respond to an European impetus for liberalization. This original study of the impact of the EU-induced liberalization of service provision on member states argues that innovative national re-regulatory strategies may be implemented in response to Europeanization. In permitting any company registered in an EU member state to provide services throughout Europe, new possibilities were created for the transnational posting of workers from low-wage to high-wage countries. However, high-wage countries could re-regulate the wage levels applicable to such employees. The exact nature of such response strategy is colored by the respective institutional power that labor market interest associations like trade unions and employer associations command. Therefore, different institutionalized varieties of capitalism generate distinct re-regulations of the Single European Market. Drawing on detailed case studies of ten European countries, this volume bridges the gap between the rapidly unfolding scholarly debate on Europeanization and varieties of capitalism. It argues that both strongly neocorporatist systems of political-economic governance and statist systems are capable of creating swift, comprehensive and thorough national re-regulations. This applies to Austria and France, but also Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. By contrast, countries with less strongly embedded neocorporatist structures, in which due to organizational deficiencies trade unions face difficulties blocking employer demands, create liberal response strategies, permitting a stratification of wage levels. Hence, both Germany and the Netherlands implemented liberal business-friendly re-regulations. The volume makes the case for important amendments to existing accounts of Europeanization and varieties of capitalism. Scholars of Europeanization need to incorporate bottom-up re-regulation into their conceptual framework, particularly in response to 'negative integration'. Recent strides in comparative political economy have placed great emphasis on continued divergence, yet this study suggests that even within the presumably unified group of 'non-liberal' coordinated market economies important institutional differences produce very distinct responses in the face of European liberalization.

'Undeniably Good Governance in Central and Eastern Europe provides many insights in the political economy of institutional reform and constitutes an important contribution to the growing literature on "second-generation" reforms.' - Carlos Santiso, Democratization The implementation of a democratic order embedded in a market economy environment has proved immensely difficult. Furthermore, this process is subject to tremendous variety within Central and Eastern Europe. Ten years after the collapse of communism it was apparent that only Poland and Slovenia surpassed their 1989 levels of GDP. This book scrutinises the arrangements to enforce good governance in this area both by means of external help and domestic political leadership. From the popular assumption that transformation is a collective good, it follows that the problem of free-riding has to be faced. Consequently there is a danger that transformation may never be completed. This book empirically tests the relationship between economic performance and good governance focusing upon voluntary coercion as a means to prevent free-riding behaviour. The author examines the role of international organisations and discusses elite formation as an important element of good governance - something often ignored in the economic analysis of economic performance.

This book explores the hypothesis of the emergence of a ‘dependent capitalism’ in Central and Eastern Europe. In a first theoretical part, this book presents the main approaches that structure the field of comparative capitalism and then examines this model shaped by the inflow of foreign capital. In an original way, it proposes to integrate the form of the monetary regime into the dependent capitalism analysis and to extend it to Balkan countries. The monetary regime is seen as complementary to the other elements of the institutional configuration of dependent capitalism. In the second part, the authors adopt a historical and empirical perspective. First, they demonstrate how dependent capitalism has emerged in Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic States over the last 30 years as part of the process of socio-economic transformation that began in 1990. The crisis of 2008 was an indicator of this dependence on Western capital. Secondly, they extend the analysis to the Balkan countries and show that dependence is even stronger for them, particularly in the monetary area, as evidenced by the implementation of currency boards or euroization phenomena. This book is of interest to academics and students, as well as to business and economic policy makers.

This book is a comparative study which sheds a new empirical and theoretical light on the nature of post-communist capitalism in 11 EU new member countries of Central and Eastern Europe, or CEE11. Extending and modifying a well-established conceptual framework for comparative capitalism rooted in new institutional economics and economic sociology, it offers a better explanation for transition-specific and path-dependent factors inherent to systemic transformation. Based on a vast dataset, the book therefore illuminates the (dis)similarities among the institutional architectures in the EU countries. Thus, the book argues that the evolving capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe exhibits strong symptoms of institutional ambiguity or a "patchwork" nature which makes it a distinct category from any of the co-existing models of Western European capitalism. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of comparative political economy, Eastern European politics, post-communist studies and more broadly to researchers in the fields of economics, European politics and the wider social sciences. It will also be of significance to journalists, policymakers, members of international organizations and consultancies with an interest in Central and Eastern Europe and in European integration. This title was distinguished in 2021 with a Prize for outstanding scientific achievements awarded by Poland’s Minister of Education and Science. See more here: https://ssl-kolegia.sgh.waw.pl/en/KGS/Pages/news.aspx?NewsID=34bcc811-438c-431f-95e5-66eabf6ce0fe&ListID=46c22218-3039-4020-954e-767189a2773d

Over a quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall and 10 years after their accession to the European Union (EU), Central and Eastern Europe Countries (CEECs) still show marked differences with the rest of Europe in the fields of labour, work and industrial relations. This book presents a detailed and original analysis of labour and social transformations in the CEECs. By examining a wide range of countries in Central Europe, Labour and Social Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe offers a comprehensive and contrasting view of labour developments in Central and Eastern Europe. Chapters explore three related issues. The first deals with the understanding of the complex process of Europeanization applied in the sphere of labour, employment and industrial relations. The second issue refers to the attempt to link the Europeanization approach with an analysis mobilizing the theoretical concept of "dependent capitalism(s)". The third issue refers to the cumulative trends of labour weakening and labour awakening that has emerged, in particular in the aftermath of the crisis beginning in 2007-2008. This book will be of interest to academics, policy makers and stakeholders at European and national level in the EU member states.

This book sets the experiences of former communist countries as they head towards capitalism against the 'varieties of capitalism' paradigm, and provides a framework for comparing transformation processes, demonstrating how differing heritages of communist and pre-communist pasts are leading to different kinds of capitalist economies.

Challenges of Modernity offers a broad account of the social and economic history of Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century and asks critical questions about the structure and experience of modernity in different contexts and periods. This volume focuses on central questions such as: How did the various aspects of modernity manifest themselves in the region, and what were their limits? How was the multifaceted transition from a mainly agrarian to an industrial and post-industrial society experienced and perceived by historical subjects? Did Central and Eastern Europe in fact approximate its dream of modernity in the twentieth century despite all the reversals, detours and third-way visions? Structured chronologically and taking a comparative approach, a range of international contributors combine a focus on the overarching problems of the region with a discussion of individual countries and societies, offering the reader a comprehensive, nuanced survey of the social and economic history of this complex region in the recent past. The first in a four-volume set on Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century, it is the go-to resource for those interested in the ‘challenges of modernity‘ faced by this dynamic region.