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

MARTIN SEMENOVA MENDELSKI
‘transition’ debate in the political economic
research on Central and Eastern Europe” and
provides a “major post-transition research
agenda” (Drahokoupil 2008, forthcoming). At
the same time, the uncritical and mechanical
application of the concepts and preconditions
of the VoC to post-communist countries can
also be misleading (Bohle/Greskovits 2007;
Drahokoupil 2008, forthcoming). In the next
two sections I will share this critical view and
describe some limitations of the VoC approach
when applied to post-communist transition
countries.
3.2 The limits of institutional
complementarities in the transition context
How useful is the VoC approach to explain
divergent institutional development trajectories
during transition? I will try to answer this
question by focusing first on institutional
complementarity, the central concept of Hall/
Soskice’s approach. According to Hall and
Soskice, institutions are complementary “if
the presence (or efficiency) of one increases
the returns from (or efficiency) of the other”
(Hall/Soskice 2001, p. 17). 2 Institutional
complementarities are basically positive synergy
effects, i.e. they create additional efficiency 3 for
institutional performance. In a short formula
we can portray institutional complementarity
as follows:
efficiency (institution A + institution B) >
efficiency (institution A) + efficiency (institution
B)
As this formula shows, institutions are
complementary if the combined efficiency of
two institutions is larger than the efficiency
of the single efficiencies, i.e. if the left side
of the equation has a higher value than the
right side. The main message of institutional
complementary is that institutions are
not only important alone, but also in their
composition.
Hall/Soskice are mainly interested in
complementarities between institutional subsystems
of the political economy (education
and vocational training, corporate governance,
inter-company-relations, industrial relations). 4
Complementarity between these spheres will
lead to limited clusters of capitalist systems.
Political economies can be classified according
the modes in which firms resolve coordination
problems, namely via corporate hierarchies
and market relationships (LMEs) or via
non-market modes of coordination (CMEs),
such as relational contracting, networks,
associations and collaborative relationships
and strategic interaction with other actors
(Hall/ Soskice 2001, p. 8-10). Typically, LMEs
are exemplified by the organizational system
of the United States and CMEs by that of
Germany. Developed economies, which lie
between these two ideal poles of coordination,
are identified as non-complementary, mixed
systems (France and other Mediterranean
economies). Hall/Soskice assume that in the
long-run complementary institutions are more
efficient than non-complementary ones and,
therefore, advise that “nations with
a particular type of coordination in
one sphere of the economy should Seite Page page 17
tend to develop complementary
practices in other spheres as well”
(Hall/Sockice 2001, p. 18). In an empirical
study, Hall/Gingerich confirm the theoretical
assumptions of limited diversity as well as the