ABSTRACT
The micro-politics of 'social markets' in post-Cold War Europe is the theme of this chapter. In eastern Germany, a region with an official unemployment rate of 17.5%, unemployment statistics are a subject of constant debate, especially because they do not count participants in training or work-creation programs. On several occasions, the national work-creation program, ABM, was expanded just prior to elections, with the effect of lowering the official unemployment rate. People here make an interesting distinction when they talk about work. They make reference to a 'competitive' labour market, and contrast this with a federally subsidised work sphere, the zweiter Arbeitsmarkt (second labour market). At the Leipzig Unemployment Office, social workers will tell you that one in four of the jobs listed in their database fall into this category. These are not real jobs and this is not the real labour market either, they will explain. In the following discussion, I retain the German phrase, zweiter Arbeitsmarkt, because the literal translation, 'second labour market,' might remind readers of a similarly sounding term, 'second economy'. In socialist countries, the term 'second economy' has been used to describe underground and informal economic activities. This use of the term is not related to the concept of a zweiter Arbeitsmarkt.
