Post Communist Welfare States In European Context

Welfare reforms in post-communist countries are determined by economic and social hardship, democratization of the political systems and rapid structural change. This groundbreaking book provides a comprehensive and systematic empirical assessment of the Central and Eastern European post-communist welfare states in the context of their Western European counterparts. Basing the study on new data on welfare entitlements and cluster analysis, Kati Kuitto systematically compares 26 European welfare states across three empirical dimensions. The author employs a multidimensional framework to analyze patterns of welfare policies and highlight spending priorities, financing and the generosity of welfare entitlements. Kati Kuitto thus sheds light on the hybrid patterns of welfare policies in post-communist countries as they have emerged after the period of transformation and discusses their future challenges. Unique and comprehensive, this is essential reading for researchers in the fields of comparative welfare state research and Central and Eastern European studies, as well as students and practitioners of social policy, social security and political economy.

This book adopts novel theoretical approaches to study the diverse welfare pathways that have evolved across Central and Eastern Europe since the end of communism. It highlights the role of explanatory factors such as micro-causal mechanisms, power politics, path departure, and elite strategies.

By explaining the path of extrication from state socialism, this book clarifies the patterns of the welfare state's transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. It identifies the emergence of a peculiar Eastern European welfare regime through the fusionof pre-communist, communist and post-communist features.

Through the use of a historical-institutional perspective and with particular reference to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia; this study explores the state of family policies in Post-Communist Europe. It analyzes how these policies have developed and examines their impact on gender relations for the countries mentioned.

Social policy in East and West finds itself today in the middle of a fundamental transition. The former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the successor states to the former Soviet Union are attempting to create the institutions needed for a modern market economy and a modern democratic welfare state. At the same time, the mature welfare states of Europe are struggling to solve the contemporary financial crisis of their systems of social entitlements. Because of fundamental economic and demographic trends, these systems will become increasingly difficult to sustain over the coming decades. The contributors overwhelmingly agree that it would be mistaken policy to simply copy the institutions of Western welfare states to the Eastern economies in transition. Instead one can learn much from the experience gathered over the past half century in Western welfare states.

This important sequel to Nordic Social Policy (Routledge 1999) compares welfare state development over the last twenty years in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden with that of Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and other Western European countries. Topics covered include: * income distribution, health inequalities and gender equality * gender policies, health and social care services and policy reaction to family changes * social security and employment policies * financing of welfare states. In the context of globalisation, ageing populations, changing employment patterns and rising inequalities, Nordic Welfare States in the European Context offers an empirical analysis of welfare adaptations and a lively discussion of the historical development of European social policy. It finds a greater ambiguity regarding variation and trends than is commonly suggested. Contrary to expectation, there is little evidence of the Europeanisation of Nordic welfare states, rather the reverse. The comparable and empirical data used in this study make it a unique contribution to understanding current trends in European social policy.

This book provides the first in-depth study of healthcare reforms in post-communist Eastern Europe. Combining insights from comparative politics and public policy analysis, it examines health reforms in Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Poland between 1989 and 2019. The book argues that the post-communist transformation of healthcare policy has entailed a process of policy learning, and that the countries' reform pathways were shaped by a series of initiatives aimed at applying market-oriented policy ideas in healthcare. The success of these initiatives has been influenced by three factors: policy legacies, political competition, and institutional configurations. The book offers a novel comparison of health reform in the region and policy changes more generally. It will appeal to scholars and students of public policy, health policy, and European politics.

This volume provides a much needed update on the state of civil society in post-communist Europe and Russia more than two decades after the fall of the communist regimes. The chapters offer new perspectives on social movement strategies in post-communist Central-Eastern Europe and Russia. The chapters illustrate how social movements develop particular repertoires of action and contention, which are better suited for their specific local contexts in the post-communist setting. In Russia and Poland, the most popular and effective choices are using domestic and transnational legal opportunities, judicial activism and litigation that complement the traditional lobbying and mass mobilization. Human rights framing has become important in Hungary and the Czech Republic. The chapters analyse various types of rights-based activism that operate in otherwise prohibitive social and political environments, thereby raising highly contentious issues, such as animal rights, environment and sustainability, human rights, women’s rights, and gay rights activism. The contributions richly illustrate the often surprising and multiple ways in which transnational discourses and norm pressure are received, translated or resisted in the local contexts. Finally, the volume provides a novel reconceptualisation and offers new understandings of the relationships between the state and civil society in the post-communist context. This book is based on a special issue of East European Politics.