Strengths and Weaknesses of the Employers' Organizations in the Post-Socialist Countries. Polish Case

The paper examines strengths and weaknesses of the business interest associations (BIAs) in post-socialist countries in East Central Europe (ECE) with particular emphasis on Poland as the largest ECE country in the European Union (EU). BIAs are considered essential features of structural changes as making capitalism without capitalists and the foundations of a new market economy in ECE. Taking into account the results of a research literature on economic interest intermediation, it is argued that Polish BIAs (comparing with selected European countries) are relatively weak at national and EU level. The main systemic determinants of this phenomenon and its principal manifestations are presented in the perspectives of neo-liberal modernization theory as well as the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) literature. Have also been characterized the growing importance of BIAs in the Polish system of representation of interests and their expressions such as the growth of political resources.