CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2012
| Author | Mesman, Tibor T |
|---|---|
| Title | Strategic Choices during System Change: Peak Level Unions and Their Struggles for Political Relevance In Post-Socialist Slovenia, Serbia and Poland |
| Summary | In this dissertation I explore the conditions of successful struggle for political relevance of ‘inherited’ national level trade unions in Slovenia (ZSSS) compared to the less successful cases in Poland (OPZZ) and the least successful Serbian union (SSS) during the period of system change from socialism (1987/8-1993/4) and assess the implications of these struggles for trade union trajectories until 2010. The project develops a critical juncture - path-dependency argument as a theoretical framework for understanding the various trajectories of these three peak level unions. I demonstrate that unions’ own critical choices and strategies of organizational self-empowerment during the system change period have mattered in shaping organizational trajectories. I argue that unions were able to become politically relevant if and only if they had overcome specific ‘inherited’ organizational vulnerabilities, achieved autonomy, and adapted to and increased their own capacities in the new environment, and exercised an autonomous voice in influencing politics and policy-making. Perceived in this way, I demonstrate that organizational reform and political self-positioning during system change had a lasting effect, leaving a sticky imprint on union trajectories. Slovenia’s ZSSS demonstrates a successful case, where the union built on its organizational resources and increased mobilization capacities, and took advantage of a wide space for strategic maneuvering for taking part in ideological struggles and policy making. In contrast, in an authoritarian populist elite-dominated Serbia, the trade union leadership of the SSS even gave up its struggle for autonomy from the elite. It disregarded the potential for mobilization of the rank and file members in favor of the security, protection, and preserved representational monopoly from the state. Finally, unlike the SSS the Polish OPZZ had sufficient autonomy to select its path, but it had less organizational capacities and faced greater political challenges than the ZSSS. The OPZZ overcame political isolation by entering into a political coalition, a strategy which, in the long run, execrated internal organizational vulnerabilities. By comparing the three cases I offer a corrective to understandings of trade unionism in Eastern Europe. I highlight the importance of resource mobilization and organizational self-empowerment at critical moments, dangers and advantages of alliances with political parties, and, especially, the under-explored factor of organizational resources as conditions for the ‘success’ of peak level unions. I find that the variation in union trajectories is explained by the historically rooted functions and character of the state (Birnbaum 1982) rather than the short-term choices and policies of the elite during system change as it is commonly understood in the literature. |
| Supervisor | Bohle, Dorothee |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2012/pphmet01.pdf |
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