Comparative Analysis of Industrial Relations and Labour Markets in Central Eastern and Western Europe
Comparative Analysis of Industrial Relations and Labour Markets in Central Eastern and Western Europe

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents a comparative analysis of industrial relations and labour market systems in eleven European Union new member states from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE11), against the backdrop of selected ‘old’ EU members representing four models of Western European capitalism. The analysis, based on the application of the similarity coefficients method, showed that in 2005 the institutional architecture of the area examined in most of the CEE11 countries exhibited the highest relative resemblance to the Continental model of capitalism. The next nine years (2005–2014) saw the strongest relative convergence trend toward the Anglo-Saxon model. However, in both 2005 and 2014, industrial relations and labour markets in CEE11 countries revealed a polycentric pattern of a simultaneous similarity to more than one model of Western European capitalism. Moreover, the empirical results of the study point to the institutional ambiguity and incoherence of the industrial relations and labour market area in these countries. Based on their key findings, the authors argue that the emerging institutional architecture in this area in CEE11 countries may be seen as a new research category, distinct from the patterns prevailing in Western Europe, which they dub a ‘patchwork capitalism’.

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