emecon Employment and economy in Central and Eastern Europe
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">The ‘Natura 2000’ network derives from the [EU] ‘Birds and Habitats’ Directives and is the centerpiece of the European Union’s nature and biodiversity conservation policy. Many Member States, however, have failed to comply or behave in a way that is consistent with the legislative objectives in the two Directives. Unfortunately, there has been little academic research conducted on this final stage of implementation to explain why the targets of EU policy do or do not behave consistently with the objectives of the policy. This research provides answers to this important question through an in-depth case study analysis of Bulgaria’s deviant ‘Case of Wind Turbines in Coastal Dobruzha’. The case study is timely, as in January 2016 the European Court of Justice ruled against the Bulgarian state in the case brought by the European Commission.
Civil Society, Governance and Community Sustainable Development: A Cognitive Approach on the Example of Rural Poland
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">The article covers the problem of relations between civil society, governance and sustainable development. It assumes that the integration and cooperation of all social actors as well as the forms of knowledge they use to define development objectives are indispensable conditions to sustainable development, and that civil society and governance structures are crucial mechanisms in such integration. The article argues that the meaning of sustainable development is the object of a struggle between the values shared by different actors and represented by different types of knowledge. It discusses the changing meanings of sustainable development as well as the role of civil society and governance structures as mechanisms in the integration of various actors and their rationales in decision-making about development. It identifies the different models of civil society and governance structures and analyses their impact on sustainable development. To illustrate the role of various models of civil society and governance structures in the implementation of sustainable development programs, the article provides case studies from rural Poland.
Energy Transition in Ukraine: Renewable Energy in the Context of Institutional Change
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">A number of sectoral reforms have lately been introduced to the Ukrainian energy market. Energy subsidies have been cut and domestic gas consumption has been reduced significantly. Reforms in recent years also affect the production of energy from renewable sources. Policy alignments with the European Union and attempts to liberalise the energy sector create a unique window of opportunity for the country. By investigating the political and regulatory framework, and by drawing from the experience of the German energy transition, the article provides a brief analysis on how market liberalisation and renewable sources can play a significant role in promoting democracy in the Ukrainian energy sector.
Pathways to sustainability in Central and Eastern Europe: practices, policies, and discourses
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">Sustainability - a global buzzword in policy making - has drawn as much interest as criticism (Nebbia, 2012; Turcu, 2012). First and foremost it drew criticism for its vague and elusive meaning and lack of clear definition. Even the emerging sustainability science admits to weaknesses in building sound theoretical and methodological paradigms (Anderson, Teisl, & Noblet, 2016). The commonly acknowledged definition of general sustainability (including its three pillars – ecologic, economic and social) invokes a vision of human welfare that takes into consideration inter- as well as intra-generational equity, and which does not surpass the limits of Earth’s natural resources. In other words, it is a vision of a society which does not live at the expense of future generations (Passerini, 1998). In 1987 the seminal report “Our Common Future”, or else Brundtland Report, defined sustainable development as development, which "... meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (World Commission on Environment and Development [WCED]1987:43). Since then, it has been adopted by most international organizations and nation states in programming their policies towards sustainable development and the adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 only confirms this direction.
Wasted money, wasted time? The sustainability of EU assistance to Hungary and Poland’s waste management sector
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">In the late 1990s, European experts feared a stalemate in the EU accession negotiations with Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries because of the expected high costs of their compliance with the EU’s environmental legislation. This fear was not borne out, however, and it is now undoubted that EU assistance has enhanced environmental capacity-building and knowledge in these countries. Nevertheless, some reports have emphasised misallocations, planning failures and mismanagement of EU funds, characterised as the unsustainability of EU-funded environmental projects in a number of CEE countries. Why have some EU-funded projects been more sustainable than others? Which features have had an effect on their sustainability? The article investigates the relationship between European and domestic actors involved in EU-funded projects in municipal waste management in Hungary and Poland in the years 1998–2013. The main findings show that when decision-making participation was horizontal and cooperative between the EU and domestic actors, EU assistance to municipal waste projects was more successful and long-lasting in helping them comply with EU legislation.
What theories do we need to explain and explore capitalism in central and eastern europe?
Contributions by Otto Holman, Elena Iankova, Lawrence King, Raj Kollmorgen, Klaus Müller
Financial crisis: testing the relationship between foreign banks and the new EU members
This paper discusses the impact of the recent financial crisis on the relationship between the domestic authorities of new member states and the foreign banks that dominate their financial sectors. Foreign banks played an adverse role during the unsustainable pre-crisis credit booms that rendered certain EU10 economies very vulnerable to crisis. However, they also supported the most affected EU10 economies through the acute phase of the crisis, when new capital and liquidity was essential for the success of domestic and international stabilization programs. It thus seems that the crisis test had proven the viability of the EU10 model of financial integration. However, there are also signs of heightened political risks that tend to be disregarded by economic analysis. This paper provides early evidence from Hungary and Latvia demonstrating that these risks are not entirely covered by EU membership. Domestic tax and regulatory policy changes may have a substantial impact on foreign subsidiaries in EU10 countries and thus strain mutual relationships more than expected. Therefore, it is yet to be seen whether the foreign-dominated banking model is resistant to the politics of hard times.
Political involvement in industrial conflict in Ukraine during the world economic crisis, 2008-2010
To what extent is the current world economic crisis leading to industrial conflict in Ukraine and through which mechanisms? This article shows with ethnographic data that the crisis did indeed spur some industrial conflict in Ukraine. Furthermore, the crisis has combined with the increase in political liberalization witnessed by Ukraine ever since 2004 to create incentives for political forces to take the workers’ side in plant-level industrial conflicts. I study three instances of plant-based industrial conflict in 2008-2010, and map how political forces contain or use worker militancy against political opponents. However, cases of industrial conflict are rather limited. With the help of statistical analysis I discuss a possible explanation why industrial conflict is largely absent from Ukraine’s most crisis-hit sector, machine-building.
How hard a blow for the collective representation of labour interests? – The Baltic industrial relations and the financial crisis
The article discusses effects of the financial crisis on the bargaining position of labour in the Baltic States based on the power resources approach. It analyses in how far distinctly Baltic characteristics of industrial relations have intensified the crisis impact as compared to other Central and Eastern European Countries. The findings stress two interrelated effects. Firstly, they do reveal a sharp drop in structural power due to the particularly high unemployment rate. Secondly, this trend is accompanied by a loss of associational and institutional power that is likely to have a weakening impact on the bargaining position of labour due to three developments: specific forms of membership losses, the widespread failure of renegotiating collective agreements and the non-compliance of anti-crisis social dialogue results. The author argues that in the outcome the crisis could distinctly intensify the individualised nature of the respective industrial relations systems. This is due to the extremely high costs it would cause labour to reverse the three mentioned developments.
Countries in distress: transformation, transnationalization, and crisis in Hungary and Latvia
With the outbreak of the global financial crisis, the vulnerability of democratic capitalism in East-Central Europe has come once again to the fore. Almost all new EU member states have accumulated major economic imbalances, and have been experiencing steep recessions. The crisis in the region is not only economic. Surging protests and the increasing appeal of political illiberalism attest to the end of the “political economy of patience” (Claus Offe) which characterized the first decade of post-socialism. The paper seeks to understand what has made the region’s democratic capitalist project so vulnerable. It takes its cue from an early body of literature which has pointed to the problems involved in simultaneously introducing capitalism and democracy. Contrary to the “breakdown thesis” which was a part and parcel of this literature, the paper argues that repeatedly, temporary solutions to the dilemma of simultaneity were found. Based on the Hungarian and Latvian examples, the paper shows how at first domestic resources – generous welfare policies in Hungary and appeals to sentiments of national solidarity in Latvia - allowed to reconcile democracy with market reforms. From the second half of the 1990s onwards, EU-accession and deeper transnational integration helped to secure the democratic capitalist project. By the late 2000s the full exposure to the risks of an increasingly instable global order has however become a major source of trouble for the two countries.
Book Review: Labour and Social Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. Europeanization and beyond. By Violaine Delteil and Vassil Nikolaev Kirov (eds), New York, Routledge, 252 p.
How has labour been transformed in the former “Workers’ States” in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) over the past quarter of a century? This volume edited by Violaine Delteil and Vasil Kirov provides dense empirical evidence and proposes multiple theoretical frameworks to explain a complex phenomenon. One of the main achievements of the contribution is that the authors capture both the plurality and the specificity of labour and capitalist transformations in the region. This raises more philosophical questions about the limits and frontiers (Schengen) of the long-expected “return to Europe” of a region which, for centuries, has been entwined in various economic and political, external and domestic dependencies.
Formal and informal care work in the hierarchy of occupational prestige
The hierarchy of occupational prestige is a valuable source of information about society’s values. Unfortunately, in existing research, care work is mostly absent. For my PhD thesis I therefore conduct research on the new meanings of occupational prestige in care work, with a research plan based on a mixed-mode explanatory sequence design. It consists of quantitative research (desk research, PAPI questionnaire and media analysis) and a second, qualitative stage. On the basis of the quantitative research I identified occupational groups of high prestige, among which were elderly-care assistants. In the second stage I conducted qualitative interviews with an interview scenario focused on occupational prestige and identity, including such issues as relations between work and private life, and gender differences.
From better job quality to higher-quality care – Polish nurses’ collective struggle with the public healthcare system
This article examines Polish nurses’ job quality in the context of changes in the Polish healthcare system. Job quality is understood as skill development and workers’ participation combined with work quality and employment quality: wage level and type of contract, working time, autonomy, the social work environment and the pace of work. The crucial problems of Polish nurses are connected with lack of control over working time, the forms of contracts, and with increasing work pressure due to low nurse/patient ratios. The specific vulnerabilities of care work are time pressure and work intensification. Its quality relies much on the possibility of teamwork and opportunities to establish a relationship with the patient. The article examines the strategies of collective resistance undertaken by Polish nurses to shape their job quality in relation to its direct consequences for the quality of care.
Hybrid work organisation in the construction sector in Bulgaria: employees or sub-contractors?
The article investigates the hybrid employment and work-organisation practices contributing to the flexibilisation of the construction-sector labour market in Bulgaria. Although it is commonly assumed that the formal economy is separate from the informal economy, authors such as Williams (2003) draw attention to a “hybrid”, semi-formal work practice where formal employees receive two wages from their formal employer: one declared and the other – undeclared. We argue that in the context of South-Eastern Europe this phenomenon is accompanied by other arrangements blurring the boundary between formality and informality. In the construction sector in Bulgaria work teams (“brigades”) are formally employed by a construction company, but de facto act as sub-contractors, as the brigade “leader” negotiates the terms and conditions with the employer, manages the team and distributes its wages. The article examines the implications of this hybridisation for the employment status, working time, and wages and job-skills using three case studies conducted in the European comparative research project WALQING (Work and Life Quality in New and Growing Jobs).
The “precarity trap” of Poland’s youth labour market: flexible employment a barrier or opportunity?
Precarity is a condition of people who are forced to make a living by taking up low-quality work, i.e. jobs that may be i.a. temporary, low-paid, with no prospect of promotion, and most often without the security of a contract. Young people unable to find permanent employment very often accept any available job, usually unrelated to their qualifications and of a transient character. This paper analyses the situation of young people (under age 29) on the labour market in Poland compared to that of other European countries in the context of the risk (based on data from Eurostat) of falling into the “precarity trap”. The dual-market theory is applied as theoretical background. Polish youth is somewhat more at risk of precarity than their peers in other Central and Eastern European countries, but their situation is much better than that of young people in the Southern European countries.
How to define and measure informal employment in CEE countries - the case of Poland
The study of informal employment is still associated with several obstacles, from the scope of definition, through measurement methods, to policy recommendations. This article aims to revise the existing methodological frames in order to point out how to improve the study of informal employment in CEE countries. The case of Poland serves to examine whether the common definitions and measurement methods are suitable for an inclusive measurement of the scale of informal employment in CEE countries, which are mostly former socialist countries. Firstly, we describe the current state of informal employment relations in CEE countries to indicate the similarities among them. Secondly we compare the existing research on informal employment in Poland with the common definitions of this phenomenon, and in this way look for more comprehensive measures of informal employment in Poland (and other CEE countries). Through a critical analysis of existing research on informal employment we indicate possible extensions of definition and the scope of measurement of informal employment in CEE countries.
From De-Stalinization to New Authoritarianism: Welfare Development in Russia. A Literature Review
The massive increase in individual and collective welfare since the second half of the 20th century is one of the central achievements of modern societies. On the welfare-state development of the democratic, capitalist countries of the West, there is correspondingly extensive research. The welfare development in Eastern Europe however has received thus far relatively little attention from the Western social sciences. Now three books have been published which address this lack and provide together an historical, longitudinal cross-section of the sociopolitical development in Russia, respectively in the USSR, since Stalin’s death.
From a mirror of Kharkiv society to leading environmental movement: the case of "Green Front"
This article draws on the example of the Green Front, an environmental movement in Kharkiv, to show how the actors’ attention to the peculiarities of the local political and social context and available resources can help a social movement achieve considerable success. A movement without leadership, funded only by members, and broadly inclined to use direct action, the Green Front can be seen as a clear example of civic initiatives that present a growing alternative to professionalized and donor-funded NGOs in post-socialist countries. Though the initial campaign against road construction did not achieve its goal, some further campaigns were more successful. The Green Front has engaged in many environmental issues, established numerous contacts with other environmental groups in Ukraine and abroad, and begun lobbying at the national level. Its initial success was based on such factors as the entanglement of structural tensions present in the initial conflict in Kharkiv; its being a combination of a mass-movement and social-movement organization capable of expertise; its insistence on activating local inhabitants; and its successful positioning in the Ukrainian and regional political environments.
Gay Rights and Europeanization Processes in Eastern Europe: the Case of Bill 2342 "On Amendments to Some Legislative Acts of Ukraine Concerning the Prevention and Combating of Discrimination in Ukraine"
The study examines the political framing of Bill № 2342, which proposed the prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation in the labor sphere in Ukraine. Nineteen distinct frames developed by key political actors and interest groups were identified, united into four master-frames. The failure of the proponents of Bill 2342 to make their frames dominant in the public discussion is explained by the lack of consolidation within the pro-camp. The most resourceful proponents (political elites) shared the opponents’ assumptions about homosexuality and LGB rights, which limited their ability to construct alternative frames. Heterogeneous frames developed by LGBT and human rights organizations did not provide any coherent response to the strong “traditional values/norms” frame used by the opponents from churches and the religious right. The study contributes to understanding the conditions for effective political framing strategies and their role in establishing and maintaining an anti-gay consensus on civil and economic rights in post-communist countries.
Big Business and Politics in Ukraine: the Evolution of State-Business Relations
Ukrainian big business has preserved its influence in Ukraine’s politics despite the political turmoil of the critical democratising junctures and reverse autocratic trends. Still, its relations with politics have changed from president to president. The article elaborates how the political embeddedness of Ukrainian big business evolved and what model of state-business relations developed in each presidential period. It demonstrates that Ukrainian big business increasingly relies on its ties with the country’s parliament to counterbalance the President’s powers. As a result, state-business relations have changed from a concentrated model to a diffuse one.
Early marriage in Roma communities in Ukraine: cultural and socioeconomic factors
This paper analyses the situation with regard to early marriage in Ukrainian society generally and in Roma communities particularly, while highlighting the importance of gender-based analysis in Roma studies. Empirical studies provide a focus on the cultural and socio-economic factors relevant to a discussion of the situation of Roma women in Ukraine who marry early, especially the sense of conflict they feel between traditional culture and modern society as they relate their experience of marriage.
Post-Soviet anti-corruption reforms in higher education: Explaining the success of external independent testing in Ukraine
Corruption during university admission has become an endemic phenomenon in many post-Soviet states. In the last decade, most countries in the region reformed their admission system and implemented external exams to combat corruption and provide equal access to qualitative education. Ukraine introduced its External Independent Testing (EIT) in 2008. Despite a non-favourable socio-political context, experts and the majority of citizens regard the EIT as one of the most successful reforms in Ukraine. How can this positive outcome be explained? The paper argues that in addition to the distinctive political will of key stakeholders and the involvement of domestic NGOs in the reform implementation, external democracy promotion programs which fostered capacity building were a decisive factor for the success. To prove this claim, the article traces the reform process, focusing on the impact of the main external actors.
The Open Method of Coordination (OMC) and disability policies in Bulgaria
This article deals with the most prominent soft law instrument in the European social policy, namely the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) and its influence on the social inclusion of people with disabilities in Bulgaria. The paper focuses in particular on the introduction and the functioning of the OMC in the pre-accession period: it offers an analytical overview of the Bulgarian legal framework and examines, at the same time, the impact of the OMC on the main policy discourses and actors’ networking in national disability policies, using the concepts of policy transfer and policy learning.
Age discrimination in the labour market in Poland – A socio-legal perspective
Sufficient scientific evidence exists, along with everyday experience, to support the conclusion that age is of substantial importance in modern labour markets. Several empirical studies have confirmed that older age can be an obstacle to finding a job. Among the solutions to the problem of the unequal treatment of workers based on age, many authors point to anti-discrimination legislation as the primary framework to effectively address the issue. However, despite the availability of such measures, their de facto application remains questionable. Taking the existing legal solutions as a point of reference for the analysis of age discrimination in employment, this article attempts to answer the following research questions: what is the efficiency of implementation of the European anti-discrimination legislation in Poland from a sociological perspective? How is the prohibition of age discrimination encompassed and interpreted in the current law and policy measures in Poland? The paper also addresses issues related to different types of age discrimination practices which are predominant in Poland. Lastly, the paper concentrates on the question of the level of awareness regarding the anti-discrimination legislation among older workers and the possibility of putting the law into practice. The empirical analysis is based primarily on quantitative data gathered in a telephone survey in the Małopolska region in Poland in 2010.
Capitalism theory in Central Eastern Europe. A critical review
At the beginning of the new century, a fundamental shift in the analysis of the political economy of Central and Eastern Europe occurred. The analysis moved away from a simple, more-or-less monolithic view of the transition from a planned to a market economy, with variations in the extent, speed, and role of historic legacies, towards attempts to grasp the patterns of institutional consolidation. This shift was accompanied by a recombination of theoretical ideas and approaches showing the limits of the original approaches and new insights, whose implications might extend beyond the post-communist space.
The responses of trade unions to the youth unemployment crisis in Greece
The present article presents the responses of the Greek trade unions to the rise of youth unemployment in Greece after the outbreak of the economic crisis. The main objective of the paper is to depict the problems that young Greeks are facing and the ways that unions are responding to those problems. The austerity measures implemented in Greece, together with the severe deterioration of the employment prospects of young workers, constitute the focal points of this overview. The analysis focuses on how the trade unions in Greece have responded to the austerity measures and what ideological elements inform their positions and strategies.
Young, educated and shopping. Clothing, consumption and difference among the educated young in Krasnodar, Russian Federation
This paper deals with questions of social inequalities in the post-socialist Russian Federation and how young, educated people (university students or young graduates) position themselves within these inequalities. It also addresses how the social stratification of the contemporary Russian Federation affects their actions as consumers. The way they dress and shop for clothes can be seen in a relation to the way they position themselves in society – as intelligent, creative, modest and so on. Their images of other social groups such as ‘the rich’ or ‘the average’, and others, is something they have in mind when putting together their own outfits or choosing places to shop for clothes.
Artistic, social or political critique? The dilemmas of Krytyka Polityczna
The paper introduces Krytyka Polityczna, the most important Polish New Left social movement. The author describes the movement's activities according to Boltanski and Chiapello's distinction of modes of critique and Eder's theory of middle-class radicalism. The descriptive and theoretical analysis is supported by the presentation of the initial findings of a quantitative study of Krytyka Polityczna's policies.
This article focuses on selected results, taken from a comparative empirical youth study from 2011 to 2012 that deals with the ‘Change in Norms and Values among Youth’. It mainly concentrates on one aspect: the value of work for young people in Poland, as described by them in group discussions and interviews. Work in general is crucial to being able to realize the visions for the future of Polish youth. Work is a goal in itself, as well as a means to achieve other goals. Particular aspects are put in relation with two youth studies carried out in earlier decades – in 1990–91 and 2001. The text contains numerous quotations originating from the interviews.
Does post-enlargement emigration from Poland impact on the wages of Poles?
The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the impact emigration has had on real wages in Poland after its accession to the EU. The elasticity of wages with respect to emigration is examined using the Polish LFS, conducted from 2004 to 2009. The results show that a 10% decrease in the labour force caused by emigration brings about a 2-4% increase in wages. Some divisions of the dataset and the investigation show significant differences in the results for different socio-demographic groups, defined with regard to sex, age or employment sector. Two separate periods of prosperity and recession were also taken into account in the analyses.