Workers without Power: Agency, Legacies, and Labour Decline in East European Varieties of Capitalism

Abstract

This article revisits the case for paying more attention to agency and strategy in theories of post-communist politics and society. The author ana- lyses two trends of major social and political signifi cance in Central and East- ern Europe between 1989 and 2007: the apparent political inconsequentiality of rising unemployment and the causes and consequences of the dramatic decline of organised labour, across a wide variety of political and institutional settings. While the prevailing explanations have emphasised the institutional and ideological legacies of the communist past, the author points to theoreti- cal reasons for why the 'unsettled times' of transformation may have been particularly conducive to elite agency. Looking beyond legacies can shed light on the degree to which elites have channelled the expression of workers' re- form grievances towards socially peaceful but, possibly, politically illiberal repertoires of expression. Pointing to past developments across a number of advanced and developing democracies, the author situates the post-commu- nist labour decline within a larger comparative and historical context. Lastly, the author indicates how the erosion of labour power has infl uenced the par- ticular models of democracy and the varieties of capitalism that have been emerging in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989.