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Labour Migration, Crisis and Cohesion in Eastern Europe: The Formation of the New Austeriat

Abstract

This project focuses specifically on labour migration from the Baltic new member states in terms of challenges it offers to social cohesion and longer-term prospects for social development in the context of the continuing aftermath of economic recession and the global economic and financial crisis. The project analyses the intersection of global economic recession with the underlying crisis of neo-liberalism in a new European Union member state, Baltic Lithuania. It ethnographically charts the disappointment of expectations occasioned by the shock of crisis for the citizens of a post-communist society. Resulting social unrest and the fragmentation of social solidarities are depicted through an analysis of "voice", as expressed in "discourses of discontent". It is suggested that the failure of the political process to acknowledge these popular discourses, and the muting of popular political protest via increasingly repressive public order policing has led to an outward "exit" of labor migration on an unprecedented scale, as well as the concerning possibility of "internal exit" in the form of xenophobia, populism and racism.

Keywords:

Civil society, Migration and development, Post-communism/socialism, social cohesion, pollitical protest

Description

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s, all three Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have distinguished themselves in their adoption of neo-liberal policies of economic and social reconfiguration Ideas of social equity and inclusive citizenship, in the context of welfare state protection for the disadvantaged, the poor and the vulnerable, found little resonance. US-style neo-liberalism seemed to offer the appropriate political and economic model, and at least until the onset of global recession, has been deemed an economic miracle with the highest rates of GDP growth in the EU. The economic downturn, therefore, represented a major reversal and the onset of the crisis therefore was a cataclysmic social and economic shock, but without the ideological rationalization of the bitter medicine necessary to cure the inherited economic ills of socialist planning. It has resulted in unprecedented popular protests, not seen since the pro-independence demonstrations of the late 1980s. Social unrest has involved trade union protest actions and violent riots. These manifestations of discontent were among the first such protests in Europe. This uniquely unfavourable conjuncture frames the project.

The project findings to date suggest that there has been a double failure of voice in contemporary Lithuania, both of orderly institutionalized social dialogue between labour and capital, and of ongoing public protest as a result of increasingly repressive public order policing. In combination, these failures have led to an intensified new wave of outward mass migration, a second surge exceeding the mass emigration which accompanied the accession of Lithuania to the European Union in 2004. Migration on the current scale now threatens the longer-term sustainability of society and the project seeks to examine the available options which might ameliorate these negative developments. But it is also suggested that exit may take an internal form, in withdrawal from democratic politics and rising populism. These outcomes can be seen not only as the results of the global economic and financial crisis, but of the longer-term flawed trajectory of neo-liberalism in post-communist society. The project findings, therefore, may have wider implications for those countries in Eastern Europe which have chosen a similar path of social and economic transition.

Publications

C. Woolfson and J. Sommers (2015) Crisis, austerity and the demise of Social Europe, Globalizations, 12 (Online 19 June 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2015.1052623.

A. Juska and C. Woolfson (2015) Austerity, labour market segmentation and emigration: the case of Lithuania, Industrial Relations Journal, 46(3): 236-253.

J. Sommers, C. Woolfson and A. Juska (2014) Austerity as a global prescription and lessons from the neoliberal Baltic experiment, Economic and Labour Relations Review, 25(3): 1-20.

J. Sommers and C. Woolfson (eds), (2014) The Contradictions of Austerity: The Socio-Economic Costs of the Neoliberal Baltic Model. London: Routledge Studies in Economics.

A. Juska and C. Woolfson (2014) The impacts of austerity on the Lithuanian labour market. In Sommers and Woolfson (eds) Contradictions of Austerity.

C. Woolfson (2013) Migration, Austerity and New Challenges to Social Sustainability in the Baltic States, in A. Horgby and V. Norland (eds.) Immigration in Times of Emigration. Stockholm: Global Utmaning, pp.19-25. http://issuu.com/globalutmaning/docs/immigration-in-times-of-emigration-?e=0

A. Juska and C. Woolfson (2012) Policing political protest in Lithuania. Crime, Law and Social Change. 57(4): 403-424.

C. Woolfson, (2012) The Economic Crisis, Austerity and Migration: Exploring the Failed Trajectory of Neo-Liberal Post-Communism. In Ulrike Schuerkens (ed) Socio-economic Outcomes of the Global Financial Crisis. London: Routledge. pp. 38-64.

A. Juskas and C. Woolfson, (2012) Exodus from Lithuania: State, social disenfranchisement and resistance in an era of austerity. In Kay Goodall, William Munro and Margaret Malloch (eds.,) Building Justice in Post-Transition Europe: Processes of Criminalisation within Central and East European Societies. London: Routledge. pp. 56-77.

C. Woolfson, (2010a) The Race Equality Directive: 'Differentiated' or 'differential' Europeanisation in the new EU member states? European Societies, 12 (4) 543-566.

C. Woolfson, (2010b) 'Hard times' in Lithuania: Crisis and 'discourses of discontent' in post-communist society.Ethnography, 11(4): 487-514.

C. Woolfson, (2009a) Labour Migration, Neo-liberalism and Ethno-politics in the New Europe: The Case of Latvia. Antipode: A journal of radical geography, 41(5): 952-82.

C. Woolfson, (2009b) Where state power and opposition collide: Discourses of labor protest in a new market economy. In M. Huspek (ed) Oppositional Discourses and Democracies, London: Routledge. pp.60-81.

J. Sommers and C. Woolfson, (2008) Trajectories of Entropy and 'the Labour Question': The Political Economy of Post-communist Migration in the New Europe. Debatte: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, 16(1): 53-69.

Other Academic Output

The Neoliberal ?Baltic Model?, the Crisis and the Formation of the new Austeriat, Work, Employment and Society Conference 13, University of Warwick Migration Plenary, Thursday 5 September 2013

Crisis, social trust and migratory exit from Lithuania, 'Trust and Social Change'. 26th Conference of the Nordic Sociological Association, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, 15-18 August 2012 (with I . Genelyte and A. Juskas).

The 'new' Lithuanian migration: Simple 'economic determinism' or a quest for social justice? The 6th Nordic Working Life Conference, Changing World of Work - Nordic Working Life and Research under pressure. Elsinore, Denmark, April 25th - 27th 2012 (with Indre Genelyte).

Social consequences and challenges of emigration Social and economic impact of migration: Central and East-European perspectives, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Warsaw 17-18 November 2011.

Solidarity and Ethno-Nationalism in Post-Communism: the Case of the Baltic States. Paper to workshop Paradoxes of Liberalism and the Conundrum of Solidarity, REMESO, 4 October 2011 (with Arunas Juska and Indre Genelyte).

Exodus from Lithuania Migration and Austerity: voluntary exit or forced migration. IMISCOE Eighth Annual Conference: Dynamics of European Migration Space: Economy, Politics and Development, Warsaw, Poland 8-9 September 2011 (with Arunas Juska).

Economic crisis, social unrest and post-communist labour migration: The case of Baltic Lithuania. Power and Participation: 25th Conference of the Nordic Sociological Association 2011, Stream: Work Migration, Oslo (with Arunas Juskas) 4-7, August 2011.

Economic crisis, social unrest and post-communist labour migration: The case of Baltic Lithuania. Transitions, Visions and Beyond, 9th Conference on Baltic Studies in Europe, Center for Baltic and East European Studies, Sodertorn University (with Arunas Juskas) 12-15 June 2011, Stockholm.

Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Migration, crisis and the discourses of discontent in post-communist society, paper to workshop After the Crisis: Labour Markets in Transition, Pufendorf Institute, University of Lund, 13 January 2011.

Suppressing the discourses of discontent: protest and passivity in post-communist society, paper to international conference Urban Security, Work Spaces, Policing the Crisis -- Policing in Crisis, Berlin, 27-30 August 2010.

Economic Crisis and Migration: Exploring the failed trajectory neo-liberal post-communism in terms of exit, voice and loyalty, paper to XV11 ISA World Congress of Sociology, Session TG02/RC09: Global Economic Crisis, Varieties of Capitalism, and Social Inequality, Gothenburg, Sweden, Conference abstracts listing, 10-17 August 2010.

Neo-liberalism, social unrest and the fragmentation of social solidarity in Baltic Lithuania: Anticipating the post-crisis migratory landscape, paper to Debatte conference, 1989-2009: The East European Revolutions in Perspective, University of London, UK, 18-19 October 2009.

Indecent Work and Insecure Citizenship: Exploring the failed trajectory neo-liberal post-communism in terms of exit, voice and loyalty, paper to conference Migration, Work and Citizenship: Toward Decent Work and Secure Citizenship, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1-3 October 2009.

More exit after voice Anticipating the likelihood and consequences of a second surge from the Baltic new EU member states", COMPAS Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford, paper to Annual Conference, New Times Economic Crisis, geo-political transformation and the emergent migration order, 21-22 September 2009.

2010 - 2014

Funding

Linköpings universitet

REMESO Project Leader

Charles Woolfson, Professor Emeritus

Participants from REMESO

Indre Genelyte

Participants not from REMESO

  • Associate Professor Arunas Juska, University of East Carolina, USA

Contact for project

charles.woolfson@liu.se


Last updated: 2015-08-22



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