Book review: Paweł Ruszkowski, Andrzej Przestalski, Paweł Maranowski, Polaryzacja światopoglądowa społeczeństwa polskiego a klasy i warstwy społeczne [Worldview polarization of Polish society and social classes and strata]

The monographic publication of four authors deals with the issue of 'polarization of consciousness': divisions of value systems within Polish society. These divisions are related to the change of the Polish political system in the second decade of the 21st century, consisting in 'replacing liberal mechanisms with centralist mechanisms in managing the state'. However, the premise of the divisions is not the mechanism of exercising power, but the competition of liberal and conservative worldviews. The authors hypothesize that 'the division into supporters and opponents of competing worldviews ... is conditioned by the belonging of individuals to specific social strata and classes'

Two Visions: Young Poles and Germans on Well-Ordered Economy

The paper discusses the results of comparative research of the well-ordered economy carried out among Polish and German youth (aged 18–30). The study was conducted at the turn of 2016 and 2017 on representative samples of young people from both countries. The list of dominant preferences of young Germans and young Poles sheds light on issues of key importance for the economic order. The set of preferences dominating among German youth represents the vision of a market (competitive) economy with a strong emphasis on social aspects: employee participation in management and the pursuit of social equality. Poles value the market economy with protection of national capital against foreign capital competition and an emphasis on the need to modernise the economy. There are several differences between the preferences given by the respondents from eastern and western parts of Germany. On the contrary to what was to be expected, the former are more liberal than the latter. The visions of respondents from Eastern states resemble those expressed by the respondents from Poland. The latter part of this paper presents the typologies of the visions of well-ordered economy obtained through factor analysis. Polish respondents most often hold the vision of ‘developmental national employee-friendly market economy’ while German respondents most often hold an individualistic or open version of ‘ordered-liberalism’

Kapitalizm Patchworkowy W Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej – Nowa Konceptualizacja

Celem niniejszego artykułu jest nowa konceptualizacja istoty postkomunistycznego kapitalizmu, który pojawił się w większości byłych krajów socjalistycznych w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem jedenastu państw, które przystąpiły do Unii Europejskiej w latach 2004–2013 (EŚW11). Nasza konceptualizacja uwypukla unikalny charakter i osobliwe cechy tego kapitalizmu, wynikające z zależności ścieżkowej procesu ewolucji porządków społeczno-gospodarczych w większości krajów regionu. Na podstawie badań teoretycznych i empirycznych prowadzonych w obszarze nowej ekonomii instytucjonalnej, nowej socjologii ekonomicznej, antropologii ekonomicznej, porównawczej ekonomii politycznej i dyscyplin pokrewnych, a także stosując Weberowską metodę typu idealnego, dowodzimy, że kraje EŚW11 cechuje przede wszystkim niespójność architektur instytucjonalnych lub inaczej – brak względnie trwałych instytucjonalnych „osnów” ich porządków społeczno-gospodarczych (fundamentalnych reguł gry), które determinowałyby charakter „wątków” – organizacji i instytucji wtórnych (graczy). Pokazujemy też, że patchwork jest wynikiem wielowiekowej słabości architektur instytucjonalnych tych krajów, następnie dwóch instytucjonalnych i klasowych załamań ich trajektorii rozwojowych, które miały miejsce w latach 1939–1949 i 1989–1991, a wreszcie – unikalnego procesu „budowy kapitalizmu bez kapitalistów” w latach 90. W wyniku interakcji wielu czynników, w większości krajów EŚW11 powstał specyficzny typ kapitalizmu, który został przez nas opisany w kategoriach typu idealnego. Głównymi wyróżnikami tego typu są: (i) słabość podstawowych instytucji tworzących porządek społeczno-gospodarczy, w tym państwa i prawa, co wynika z istniejącej spuścizny historycznej i ze sposobu tworzenia go przez inteligencką „elitę przełomu”; (ii) brak dominującego typu kapitału, który narzucałby własne preferencje w zakresie „osnowy”: było to m.in. konsekwencją szerokiego dostępu kapitału zagranicznego, pochodzącego z różnych krajów oraz współistnienia różnych form własności krajowej, z których żadna nie zdobyła pozycji monopolistycznej w gospodarce; (iii) wynikający z powyższego brak dominującej klasy ekonomicznej (np. narodowej burżuazji), zainteresowanej istnieniem określonej „osnowy”, gotowej jej bronić i mającej wystarczające po temu wpływy polityczne oraz (iv) brak dostatecznie szeroko zinternalizowanych społecznie wartości kulturowych, wspierających „osnowę”. Łączne oddziaływanie tych czynników sprawia, że kapitalizm patchworkowy stał się podatny na wzrost ekonomiczny o charakterze entropijnym (pojęcie to wyjaśniamy w 3 rozdziale artykułu) dzięki otwartości na dołączanie nowych organizacji i instytucji o własnej logice działania, niczym zszywanie „patchworkowej” derki z różnorodnych łat

Patchwork Capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe – a New Conceptualization

This paper aims at a new conceptualization of the essence of post-communist capitalism that emerged in most former socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, with special emphasis on the eleven states that joined the European Union between 2004 and 2013 (CEE11). Our conceptualization highlights the unique nature and peculiar features of this type of capitalism, resulting from the path-dependent evolution of the socio-economic orders in most countries of the region. On the basis of theoretical and empirical research conducted in the field of new institutional economics, new economic sociology, economic anthropology, comparative political economy and related disciplines, as well as applying Weberian ideal-type method, we argue that the CEE11 countries exhibit incoherence of their institutional architectures or else – they lack the institutional 'fabric' of their socio-economic orders (fundamental rules of the game) which would determine the nature of their 'thread', i.e., organizations and secondary institutions (players). Simultaneously, we also show that this is the outcome of both the centuries-long weaknesses of the national institutional architectures in these countries, two institutional and class structure breakdowns or turning points on their development trajectories that occurred in the 1939–1949 and the 1989/1991 periods respectively, as well as the subsequent, unique process of 'building capitalism without capitalists' in the 1990s. As a result of the interaction of multiple factors, in most of the CEE11 countries a peculiar type of capitalism has emerged, which we have described in terms of an ideal type. Its essence boils down to: (i) the weakness of basic institutions making up their socio-economic order, including the state and the law, as a consequence of their historical legacy and the way it was created by the intelligentsia-based 'breakthrough elite'; (ii) the absence of a dominant form of capital able to impose its own 'fabric' preferences: this was, inter alia, a derivative of unconstrained access of foreign capital, coming from various countries, and the coexistence of various forms of national ownership, none of which has achieved or maintained a strong enough position to impose an institutional structure on the entire economy; (iii) the resultant absence of a dominant economic class (e.g. the national bourgeoisie) interested in the existence of a particular 'fabric', ready to defend it and with sufficient political influence to do so; and (iv) the lack of well-internalized – or deeply socially embedded – cultural values supporting the 'fabric'. These factors combined make patchwork capitalism vulnerable to entropic economic growth (the concept wwe discuss in Section 3 of the article) as, due to low institutional barriers to entry, any new organizations and institutions can join it relatively easily, imposing their own logics on the host institutional architectures – exactly the way a patchwork blanket is made through stitching divergent new patches. Given these peculiarities we argue that patchwork capitalism ought to be conceived as a new, distinct research category in comparative studies on post-communist capitalism. Our intention, however, is not to replace the existing typologies of capitalism in CEE11 countries with a new one; rather, we aim to complement and ameliorate them through pointing to a new, peculiar dimension of capitalism, mostly neglected in the hitherto research. The peculiarity of this dimension consists in its two-form character: it either (i) gives certain types of capitalism a patchwork feature, indicating the relative weakness of the institutional 'fabric' involved and vulnerability to transformation, or (ii) denotes a separate object, i.e., it implies the existence of a self-contained type of capitalism, labeled 'patchwork capitalism'. In the latter situation, a specific socio-economic order converges to the ideal type due to the extreme weakness of its 'fabric'. In the first case, an exemplification may be for example 'patchwork corporatism', i.e., an order in which, despite the relative weakness of its fabric, the institutional architecture concerned resembles a coordinated market economy. In turn, in the second case, the institutional fabric is so ambiguous and volatile that its unequivocal classification in conceptual terms inherent to standard typologies of capitalism becomes a challenge, which often leads researchers to qualify a given socioeconomic order as 'heterogeneity'

Comparative Analysis of Industrial Relations and Labour Markets in Central Eastern and Western Europe

The paper presents a comparative analysis of industrial relations and labour market systems in eleven European Union new member states from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE11), against the backdrop of selected ‘old’ EU members representing four models of Western European capitalism. The analysis, based on the application of the similarity coefficients method, showed that in 2005 the institutional architecture of the area examined in most of the CEE11 countries exhibited the highest relative resemblance to the Continental model of capitalism. The next nine years (2005–2014) saw the strongest relative convergence trend toward the Anglo-Saxon model. However, in both 2005 and 2014, industrial relations and labour markets in CEE11 countries revealed a polycentric pattern of a simultaneous similarity to more than one model of Western European capitalism. Moreover, the empirical results of the study point to the institutional ambiguity and incoherence of the industrial relations and labour market area in these countries. Based on their key findings, the authors argue that the emerging institutional architecture in this area in CEE11 countries may be seen as a new research category, distinct from the patterns prevailing in Western Europe, which they dub a ‘patchwork capitalism’

The dynamics of tripartism in post-democratic transitions : comparative lessons from Spain and Poland

The article compares the role of tripartism during and after democratic transitions in Spain and Poland. In both countries it emerged after a negotiated transition from dictatorship, but it was poorly institutionalised. While it fell short of ‘neocorporatist’ levels of governance, it had a ‘foundational’ function in stabilising both political and economic transitions, and despite its limitations, it endured for decades in the frequent, if unregular, practice of negotiating ‘social pacts’. The comparison reveals some striking similarities despite the contrasting economic systems of origin, and identifies some structural constants in the evolution of post-democratic tripartism, up to the recent crisis

Wyłaniające się odmiany kapitalizmu w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej: przegląd badań

The article contains a review of the most representative theoretical and empirical studies on the emerging varieties/models of capitalism in Central Eastern Europe (CEE). A critical appraisal was made of standard and non-standard approaches found in the subject literature. Specific features of the institutional structure existing in the CEE countries have been indicated which make it difficult to apply the theoretical framework used in the developed capitalist countries. Possible directions of further research on the models of capitalism emerging in CEE have also been delineated together with some proposals of modification and extension of the theoretical and methodological framework of this research

Wyłaniające się odmiany kapitalizmu w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej: przegląd badań

The article contains a review of the most representative theoretical and empirical studies on the emerging varieties/models of capitalism in Central Eastern Europe (CEE). A critical appraisal was made of standard and non-standard approaches found in the subject literature. Specific features of the institutional structure existing in the CEE countries have been indicated which make it difficult to apply the theoretical framework used in the developed capitalist countries. Possible directions of further research on the models of capitalism emerging in CEE have also been delineated together with some proposals of modification and extension of the theoretical and methodological framework of this research

Wyłaniające się modele kapitalizmu w Polsce i krajach Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej na tle Europy Zachodniej

This article presents the results of the study which aims to enrich the empirical picture and to better understand the nature of capitalism emerging in Poland and other new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE11). Our main research goal is to assess the degree of similarity of Poland and other CEE11 countries toward each of the four models of capitalism in Western Europe distinguished by Bruno Amable. Each of these models is represented by an “ideal-typical” western European country. At the average level for the whole analyzed group, the CEE11 countries show the greatest similarity to the Mediterranean model of capitalism, represented by Spain/Italy. At the same time, these countries also exhibit quite high institutional proximity to the continental model of capitalism, represented by Germany