Suchergebnisse

Intro -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- Acknowledgments -- One. Introduction: From Flagship Enterprises to Subsidiaries -- Two. State Capacity and the Political Economy of Industrial Restructuring -- Three. Putting Reform in Context: Politics of Initial Policy Choice -- Four. Restructuring Behemoths: State Capacity and the Enterprise Level in Comparative Perspective -- Five. Acting Collectively: Social Dialogue, State Capacity, and Sectoral Restructuring -- Six. Rise of Transnational Capitalism: State Capacity and External Pressures -- Seven. Conclusion: European Capitalisms in Comparative Perspective -- Appendixes -- Appendix A: List of Interviews -- Appendix B: Calculation of State Aid to the Steel Sector -- Appendix C: Enterprise List and Ownership Type of Steelworks in the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia in 1990, 1996, and 2005 -- Notes -- References -- Index.

Focusing on the steel industry during the post-communist transition from 1989 through 2009, Aleksandra Sznajder Lee traces the transformation of flagship state enterprises in the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia into the subsidiaries of large, international corporations. By analyzing this transformation at the three levels of enterprise, sector, and national-international nexus, she identifies the players—from international investors and European Union members to national labor unions and local industry managers—in the political economy of reform. Even in the midst of the transition to a capitalist, democratic system, Sznajder Lee finds, the state plays a key role in mediating between domestic vested interests and external pressures from international financial markets and institutions, on the one hand, and regional institutions on the other. Whereas state power may be employed to require domestic firms to operate as capitalists in the international market, it may also be used to shield enterprises from market pressures in order to promote the political and personal preferences of the elite.This book has broad implications for the political economy of reform because it illuminates the political determinants of privatization and the resources used to resist it. In addition, Sznajder Lee sheds new light on why some countries are more likely than others to be subject to external constraints, such as IMF conditionality, and how some allegedly pro-market reformers manage to maintain public ownership over certain industry sectors. ; https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1234/thumbnail.jpg

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the European Union (EU) accession process on the restructuring and privatization of the steel sector of the four largest steel producers in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), namely Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Slovakia. The outcome to date for these countries' steel mills has been relatively uniform in that they have been integrated into the global production networks of some of the largest multinational steel enterprises. The pressures which brought this outcome about, however, were far from uniform. The variability in the modes of convergence is highlighted by the surprising timing of the sales to strategic foreign investors. The countries in the forefront of the EU accession process, i.e., the Czech Republic and Poland, actually privatized their largest steel producers to strategic foreign investors after Romania and Slovakia. Moreover, in the case of the Czech Republic and Poland, the steel sector represented an important impediment to the closure of the competition chapter of the accession negotiations. The case of the steel sector thus poses three puzzles. The first is that the outcomes in the four countries converged despite these countries' very different legacies. The second puzzle is that the convergence took place in all four of them late in the transition process. The third, related, puzzle is that Poland and the Czech Republic actually sold their largest steel producers to foreign investors after Slovakia and Romania.

We examine the effects of European integration on economic redistribution in Central and Eastern Europe. While accession to the European Union provided new economic opportunities, it also imposed considerable constraints. Using cross-sectional time-series analysis of 11 post-communist countries between 2004 and 2018, we focus on the impact of trade flows, cohesion policy funds, emigration, remittances, and Economic and Monetary Union membership. We find that emigration and commercial reorientation toward the European Union are associated with greater efforts to alleviate income inequality. In contrast, the adoption of the euro induces lower redistribution. Finally, the receipt of European Union cohesion funds does not affect income differentials. To our knowledge, this is one of the first systematic analyses of how the European Union shapes inequality dynamics in Central and Eastern Europe.

We examine the role of political institutions in mediating the effects of globalization on economic redistribution in Central and Eastern Europe. The region represents a least-likely case of welfare state resilience in the face of global economic pressures given its reliance on foreign capital and considerable domestic elite support for neoliberal recipes during the postcommunist transition. Yet, contrary to the race-to-the-bottom hypothesis and consistent with the compensation perspective, we find that economic openness is on average related to higher redistribution. Using the high-quality European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions database for 2004–2018, we find that this effect is particularly pronounced in institutional environments where votes are more accurately translated into legislative seats (low disproportionality) and where governments face greater scrutiny both during elections (vertical accountability) and between them (diagonal accountability). Thus, even in a region that adopted "competitive deregulation," the downward pressures of globalization were limited by electoral pressures for economic redistribution.

Der Beitrag analysiert die Gründe für die Schwächung der Gewerkschaften in Mittel- und Osteuropa auf betrieblicher Ebene. Am Beispiel der Stahlindustrie in Polen, Rumänien und der Slowakei zeigt er, dass die Gewerkschaften Legitimität und Unterstützung bei den Belegschaften aufgrund ihrer Verwicklung in die Restrukturierung der Unternehmen verloren haben, und zwar aus je unterschiedlichen Gründen. In der Slowakei und Rumänien haben sich die betrieblichen Gewerkschaftsvertreter zusammen mit Regierungsangehörigen an den Betrieben privatwirtschaftlich bereichert und die Unternehmen so in den Bankrott geführt, während in Polen die Gewerkschaften versucht haben, die Profitabilität der Unternehmen zu erhalten, auf Kosten der Arbeitsplätze. Der neoliberale Kurs der polnischen Gewerkschaftsvertreter als quasi Ko-Eigentümer schwächt ihr gewerkschaftliches Mandat.

"Der Beitrag analysiert die Gründe für die Schwächung der Gewerkschaften
in Mittel- und Osteuropa auf betrieblicher Ebene. Am Beispiel der Stahlindustrie in
Polen, Rumänien und der Slowakei zeigt er, dass die Gewerkschaften Legitimität und Unterstützung
bei den Belegschaften aufgrund ihrer Verwicklung in die Restrukturierung der Unternehmen
verloren haben, und zwar aus je unterschiedlichen Gründen. In der Slowakei und
Rumänien haben sich die betrieblichen Gewerkschaftsvertreter zusammen mit Regierungsangehörigen
an den Betrieben privatwirtschaftlich bereichert und die Unternehmen so in den
Bankrott geführt, während in Polen die Gewerkschaften versucht haben, die Profitabilität der
Unternehmen zu erhalten, auf Kosten der Arbeitsplätze. Der neoliberale Kurs der polnischen
Gewerkschaftsvertreter als quasi Ko-Eigentümer schwächt ihr gewerkschaftliches Mandat." (Autorenreferat)