1 East European Labor, the Varieties of Capitalism, and the Expansion of the EU Stephen Crowley Oberlin College steve.crowley@oberlin.edu Comment are welcome Abstract With the European Union now expanded to include ten new member states, the transformation of industrial relations in postcommunist eastern Europe has become increasingly important, including for the nature of capitalism in Europe as a whole. Following the varieties of capitalism literature, which divides advanced capitalist economies into coordinated and liberal market models, this paper examines labor institutions in eastern Europe to determine which of the types they most approximate. We then find that, despite the surface similarities of the communist political economy with the coordinated model, nine of the ten postcommunist (new and prospective) member states are much closer to the liberal than the coordinated ideal type. Again following the varieties of capitalism approach, but also guided by criticisms of its perspective on institutional change, we find that the prospect that the eastern European countries will converge or harmonize toward existing European labor and social standards to be unlikely. Rather, it appears more likely that the liberal approach of the new member states will provide a significant additional impetus for the further liberalization of the coordinated economies of western Europe.