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

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS REFERENCES LITERATUR IN THE UKRAINE
of certain segments operating according to
different IR dynamics. Hence, each of the segments
(state budget sector, privatized or about
to be privatized enterprises, emergent private
sector, and Transnational Corporations) were
claimed to produce a different pattern of IR
(Kabalina und Komarovsky 1997, Martin und
Cristescu-Martin 2004, 2006, Sidenko und
Kuziakiv 2003, Slomp, van Hoof und Moerel
1996, Peng 2000) 2 .
It should be recognized that while certain
segments are conducive to certain types of IR,
these arguments do not apply in full for the
example of Ukraine. In education and medical
services in Ukraine workers and independent
unions were quite assertive in terms of their
rights and demands. In contrast, unions remained
salient in many privatized enterprises;
and IR followed old-style paternalistic logic.
Similarly, the continuity in the original IR
practices in foreign companies was questioned
elsewhere (e.g. Cooke 2006, Tholen 2007).
Hence, the segmentation of the business systems
alone is not sufficient in explaining IR
outcomes. Rather, some insights are necessary
into how the new IR system is structured and
institutionalized. Whereas its institutional
design is driven much by international practices
and principles, the bottom-level change
in enterprises, employers and unions proceeds
more slowly. Here IR actors, in particular, still
find themselves in the processes of
formation, while their agency does
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not always conform to the patterns of
action imposed institutionally. I argue
that the dynamic perspective of actors’
formative processes and their interaction is
superior in explaining the local segmentation
of IR.
IR INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN AND ACTORS’
FORMATION
Such unique simultaneous re-building of postsocialist
IR arenas and actors can be addressed
as the evolution of IR arenas in the sense of
Müller-Jentsch’s actor-centered institutionalism
(Müller-Jentsch 1996). On the one hand,
the new institutional design is developed
across former Soviet countries (hereafter
FSU) in convergence with the principles
of the International Labour Organization
(ILO) and the European Social Model 3 . Such
institutionalization from above (and from
outside) is difficult in its deterministic view of
the local processes (Burawoy und Verdery 1999,
Grabher und Stark 1997, Stark 1998, Wollmann
1997). Not least because the newly imposed set
of rules regulates the patterns of interest and
prescribes patterns of action that are still to
emerge. As the construction of autonomous
interest organizations is not completed (Slomp,
van Hoof und Moerel 1996, Schienstock 1992),
actors find themselves in the processes of (re)
defining their roles and functions (Rippe 1985,
Schienstock, Thompson und Traxler 1997).
Therefore, it is not surprising that the new
rules of the game laid down with international
assistance cannot be institutionalized. This is
confirmed by deficits in the functionality of
law, collective bargaining and social dialogue in
the region 4 .
In the process of the institutionalization,
currently fluid and contested IR arenas will
be re-shaped during the processes of actors’
formation and their capacity to mobilize the
resources providing for their strength. From
the perspective of the actor-centered institutionalism,
institutions are treated in terms