Välfärdsstaten i tre post-kommunistiska stater
konservativ, liberal eller socialdemokratisk? En studie av socialpolitikens utveckling i Tjeckien, Polen och Ungern efter 1989
Social policyWelfare regimesPost-CommunistThe Czech RepublicPolandHungaryEsping-AndersenGøsta.Political and administrative sciencesStatsvetenskapFörvaltningskunskapSocial problems and welfareNational insuranceSociala problemSocial välfärdSocialförsäkringLaw and Political Science
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the satellite states of the former Communist bloc immediately departed on a journey towards democracy and market capitalism. Among the many tasks of the newly elected governments, one was to transform the paternalist Communist welfare state into a social system that would decrease the oversized role of the state, at the same time as protecting the citizens from the hardships ensued from the transition.I have studied the evolution of new welfare systems in the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, three countries generally agreed as the most similar and most successfull transition countries of the Eastern bloc. Gøsta Esping-Andersen's prominent typology of welfare regimes, consisting of the liberal, corporatist and social democratic regime-types, has constituted the theoretical basis of the analysis. Simultaneously, applying new cases to the typology implies an element of theory testing.The study shows that 40 years of Communism and partial isolation from the West has not prevented these three countries from developing welfare states fully compatible with those of Western Europe and the Anglo-Saxon nations and that all three of them in fact fall within the scope of the corporatist regime-type.