Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

THE POLITICS OF LABOUR MARKET ADJUST-
MENT IN POST-1989 POLAND
page 122
of hope and high expectations for material improvement
as well as improved living conditions
in many of the countries concerned. In
Poland particularly, the free market was seen as
the solution to bring to end the consumption
restrictions that marked the years of shortage
economy (Mazurek 2010). As Leszek Balcerowicz
led the way to macroeconomic stabilisation
while pursuing his ‘shock therapy’ plan
of anti-inflationary policies and quick privatisation,
however, it soon became obvious that
the rise of a capitalist, free market economy
would not take place without another type of
pain: rapidly expanding unemployment. Some
feared that this would trigger labour unrest,
union opposition to the course of reform or a
risk of electoral backlash resulting in former
communist parties returning to power and attempting
to restore the former political order.
None of this happened in Poland, even when
mass dismissals became common in sectors
undergoing privatisation and unemployment
peaked at 20% at the end of the 1990s. More
strikingly, social pains rarely translated into
political mobilisation against new policies,
which suggests that other channels of interest
representation and compensation came into
play. Contrary to the argument of a quick retreat
of the state, I argue that policies – both
new and old undergoing reform as well as both
discourses and effective instruments - played
a major role in establishing the conditions for
a peaceful transition from a centrally
administered universal employment
system to a capitalist labour market in
which individual fates are widely differentiated.
The transformations of the work – welfare
nexus in post-communist Central and Eastern
European countries can be analysed along the
same dimensions as historical developments
that, I argue, are comparable in scope: the
emergence of welfare policies in rising capitalist
states in Western Europe over the last century,
which has been the subject of a wide array of
research. Confronting welfare state theories
within a new setting, the fast changing political
system, economy and society in Poland (and
other Central and Eastern European countries)
allows for further testing of their explanatory
power and validity. Conversely, comparing the
profound, multidimensional transformations
observed in fast-changing environments, such
as Poland and the rest of Central and Eastern
Europe in the aftermath of 1989, with more
established theories of welfare policy-making
offers analytical rigour to the study of this
seemingly unique phenomenon and reintegrates
it into the field of comparative politics. 2 The
aim of this paper is thus to examine what the
theories of the welfare state originally derived
from the study of ‘mature’ welfare states in
Western Europe tell us about labour market
policy formation in emerging capitalism, and
what the latter tell us about the former.
In both cases, regardless of the gap in time,
what is at stake is a radical redefinition of the
respective responsibilities of the individual
and the political community of citizens, while
state administration consolidates itself as an
interface between both in times of profound
industrial and economic transformations. These
are best captured through the process of labour
market adjustment, which in turn is governed
not only by firms but also by the institutional
framework available to them, and in which
they are embedded. Placing the emphasis
on policies organising work, employment