https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3343168.pdf

Development as Freedom

Keywords: a Vocabulary of Culture and Society

In the 1980s fiscal reform in China provided localities with strong incentives and a heightened capacity to pursue industrial growth. As a result, local governments have responded vigorously to economic reform, managing rural collective-owned enterprises as diversified corporations, with local officials performing the role of a board of directors. This article analyzes the incentives that have led to the development of this form of local state corporatism and rapid rural industrialization, and it describes the ways in which local governments coordinate economic activity and reallocate revenues from industrial production. These developments are important for two reasons: they show that local government involvement in the economy does not necessarily decline with the expansion of market coordination; and they offer a successful model of reform that serves as a counterpoint to privatization proposals.

Fiscal Reform and the Economic Foundations of Local State Corporatism in China

This article enlarges the existing literature on the varieties of capitalism by identifying a third basic variety that does not resemble the liberal market economy or coordinated market economy types. The dependent market economy (DME ) type, as it is named by the authors, is characterized by the importance of foreign capital for the socioeconomic setup and is located in postsocialist Central Europe. Since the collapse of state socialism in the late 1980s, the Czech republic, Hungary, poland, and the slovak republic have introduced a rather successful model of capitalism when compared with other postsocialist states. This article identifies the key elements of the DME model and discusses their interplay. DME s have comparative advantages in the assembly and production of relatively complex and durable consumer goods. These comparative advantages are based on institutional complementarities between skilled, but cheap, labor; the transfer of technological innovations within transnational enterprises; and the provision of capital via foreign direct investment.

/pdf/enlarging-the-varieties-of-capitalism-the-emergence-of-250dd37826.pdf

Enlarging the Varieties of Capitalism: The Emergence of Dependent Market Economies in East Central Europe

This article analyses the key features and origins of three variants of transnational capitalism emerging in Central-Eastern Europe: a neoliberal type in the Baltic states, an embedded neoliberal type in the Visegrad states, and a neocorporatist type in Slovenia. These regimes are characterised by their institutions and performances in marketisation, industrial transformation, social inclusion, and macroeconomic stability. Explanations for regime diversity are developed at two levels. First, it is argued that the legacies of the past, and their perceptions as either threats or assets to these countries' future, have had deep impact on regime types. Legacies and initial choices were no less crucial for the degree of democratic inclusion, and the different patterns of protest and patience on the paths towards the new regimes. Second, the article demonstrates the importance of transnational influences in industrial transformation and social inclusion.

Neoliberalism, embedded neoliberalism and neocorporatism: Towards transnational capitalism in Central-Eastern Europe

How did the fall of communism and the subsequent transition to capitalism in Eastern Europe affect the people who experienced it? And how did their anger affect the quality of the democratic systems that have emerged? Poland offers a particularly provocative case, for it was here where workers most famously seemed to have won, thanks to the role of the Solidarity trade union. And yet, within a few short years, they had clearly lost. An oppressive communist regime gave way to a capitalist society that embraced economic and political inequality, leaving many workers frustrated and angry. Their leaders first ignored them, then began to fear them, and finally tried to marginalize them. In turn, workers rejected their liberal leaders, opening the way for right-wing nationalists to take control of Solidarity. Ost tells a fascinating story about the evolution of postcommunist society in Eastern Europe. Informed by years of fieldwork in Polish factory towns, scores of interviews with workers, labor activists, and politicians, and an exhaustive reading of primary sources, his new book gives voice to those who have not been heard. But even more, Ost proposes a novel theory about the role of anger in politics to show why such voices matter, and how they profoundly affect political outcomes. Drawing on Poland's experiences, Ost describes lessons relevant to democratization throughout Eastern Europe and to democratic theory in general.

The Defeat of Solidarity: Anger and Politics in Postcommunist Europe

Th e plethora of tripartite bodies in postcommunist countries seems to suggest the emergence of an East European corporatism. Analysis of arrangements in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland indicates instead the prevalence of illusory corporatism. Token negotiations, non-binding agreements, and exclusion of the private sector demonstrate that tripartite procedures are deployed to introduce neoliberal, not social democratic, outcomes. A path-dependent argument stressing labour’s weak class identity best explains these outcomes. East European labour, unlike historic western counterparts, is marked by a weak sense of class interests, disinclination to organize the private sector, and declining support from the workforce, making it unable to emerge as a strong force. It is not labour but the new elites that seek tripartism, hoping thereby to share burdens, conform to European norms, and demonstrate responsiveness to society. Formal tripartism also follows from the legacy of state socialism, giving symbolic voice to the formerly included now headed for exclusion. In the end, tripartism helps secure labour’s acceptance of its own marginalization.

Illusory corporatism in Eastern Europe: neoliberal tripartism and postcommunist class identities

http://kolegia.sgh.waw.pl/pl/KES/struktura/IFSISE/Documents/6.David_Ost,Illusory_Corporatism_in_Eastern_Europe.Neoliberal_Tripartism_and_Postcommunist_Class_Identities.pdf

Illusory Corporatism in Eastern Europe: Neoliberal Tripartism and Postcommunist Class Identities

The demise of communism in East Europe means that politics must be constructed anew. Those who toppled the old regimes and have come to head the new ones like to assure people that political life will be organized completely differently from the way it's been organized in the past. Where civil society was subordinated to the state, now the state will be subordinated to society. Where politics ruled over markets, now markets will allocate resources. Where politics was largely the purview of the ruling party, now it will be open to all parties and interest groups. Where communism repressed particular interests, post-communism will embrace them. In short, where the communist system was state-centered, the new system will be society-centered.1

The politics of interest in post-communist East Europe

In most academic research on politics, emotions are deemed important only to the realm of subjects or citizens, not to power. Emotions are presented as a problem power has to deal with, not something with which power is itself intimately involved. This article discusses recent attempts to reintroduce emotions into political analysis and argue that they are incomplete insofar as they look only at opposition social movements, not at mainstream parties. With a nod to Carl Schmitt, I argue that anger is not something that only occasionally bursts onto the political scene, but is central to ‘normal’ politics as well. Anger is central to politics both as a diffuse, untargeted sentiment citizens experience, usually economically, and as the emotion political organizers need to capture and channel, which they do by offering up an ‘enemy’ they identify as the source of the problem. Opposition movements and parties of power alike succeed when they persuade people to accept the enemy they propose.

David Ost

Papers

The Defeat of Solidarity: Anger and Politics in Postcommunist Europe

Illusory corporatism in Eastern Europe: neoliberal tripartism and postcommunist class identities

Illusory Corporatism in Eastern Europe: Neoliberal Tripartism and Postcommunist Class Identities

The politics of interest in post-communist East Europe

Politics as the Mobilization of Anger: Emotions in Movements and in Power