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

MARTIN SEMENOVA MENDELSKI
(socialist legacy) and current factors (EU
membership, policy choices, wars). Because
many different variables are chosen to explain
variety, sometimes one and the same country is
put in different clusters of countries. Therefore,
classification of countries depends strongly on
the level of analysis (micro/macro level), the
research design, the length of the study period
and the sectors chosen (Deeg 2007; Deeg/
Jackson 2007).
b. No consistent relationship between economic
performance and complementary institutions. The
institutional trajectories of post-communist
countries do not confirm a correlation of
economic success and institutional system
purity. On the one hand, countries with
complementary institutions are economic
frontrunners (Slovenia and Estonia) while
countries with non-complementary institutions
(most countries from SEE and the former
Soviet Union) are economically less successful.
On the other hand, there are mixed political
economies with non-coherent institutions that
are also economically successful (e.g. Poland,
Czech Republic, Hungary).
c. Unfinished transition process to capitalism. In
most post-socialist countries, the transition
towards a certain type of market economy is still
unfinished and unsettled. Especially in South-
Eastern Europe and former Soviet Republics,
capitalist structures are underdeveloped and
institutional enforcement is low. Therefore, it is
difficult to classify these economies and predict
which type of capitalism will emerge.
does not capture the development of postcommunist
transition countries because of the
peculiarities of the former socialist societies
(path dependent informal institutions, diverse
communist legacies). As a result, scholars
propose an extention of the CME and
LME typologies and, with that, introduce
additionally some “mixed type” or “hybrids
of capitalism” (e.g. Bartlett 2007; Charman
2007; Cernat 2006; Lane 2007a; King 2007).
Moreover, Hall/Soskice’s VoC approach
is extended by bringing in other actors
(state, international organizations, political
entrepreneurs, networks between economic
actors) that bargain over institutional reforms
under different political systems (authoritarian
or repressive state) and are constrained by
informal institutions and history. In summary,
VoC literature on post-communist Europe
claims that capitalist diversity cannot be
explained solely by internal complementarities
between institutional sub-systems and firms as
the main actors. Instead, explaining capitalist
diversity and institutional change must
include diverse historical and future variables,
which can be internal (national state, national
interest groups, structural legacy) or external
(EU, international organizations).
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d. Extension of VoC proposed. Most authors,
especially those in the volume edited by Lane/
Myant 2007, conclude that the VoC approach