Labanino, Rafael Pablo (2024). Political Agency in Dependent Market Economies – The effect of partisan competition on economic and social policy reforms in four Central and Eastern European countries between 1990 and 2014. (Thesis). Universität Bern, Bern
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Abstract
The dissertation explores the role of political agency in social and economic policy reforms in four Central and Eastern European countries between 1990 and 2014. It challenges the existing scholarship's emphasis on structural factors – economic, institutional, and external – when explaining post-communist reform outcomes. Using the Liberalisation Dataset 1973-2013 (Armingeon et al. 2019), the dissertation meticulously reconstructs 25 years of liberalising and de-liberalising reforms across ten social and economic policy areas in Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, demonstrating the pivotal role of domestic political actors in shaping their distinctive reform trajectories. Focusing on democratic party competition, the study reveals that despite the severe constraints imposed by the simultaneous post-communist economic and political transition, as well as the EU accession process, the functional pressure to liberalise was moderated by the party system. In other words, domestic political actors enjoyed relative freedom in determining the direction (i.e., whether liberalising or de-liberalising), the significance, and timing of social and economic policy reforms. The thesis provides compelling evidence of systematic liberalisation dynamics, which are influenced by the behavioural patterns of national populations and the unique characteristics of each country's party system. In short, when public and partisan support for liberalisation — both of which are highly variable across countries — wanes, liberalisation often breeds fatigue that political entrepreneurs across the spectrum exploit to push for de-liberalisation. This, in turn, triggers pressure for renewed liberalisation.
| Item Type: | Thesis |
|---|---|
| Dissertation Type: | Single |
| Date of Defense: | 31 October 2024 |
| Subjects: | 300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 320 Political science |
| Institute / Center: | 03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Institute of Political Science |
| Depositing User: | Hammer Igor |
| Date Deposited: | 11 Dec 2025 16:22 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Dec 2025 08:26 |
| URI: | https://boristheses.unibe.ch/id/eprint/6959 |
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