Social Service Reform In The Postcommunist State

Author : Janelle A. Kerlin
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781585444175
Total Pages : 204 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Social Service Reform in the Postcommunist State written by Janelle A. Kerlin and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2005-06-28 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fall of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe raised the complex question of how social services were to be distributed and administered in countries with legacies of highly centralized state. In Poland, a series of reforms attempted to modify and decentralize social service programs. Yet with Poland’s second round of decentralization, long-held and clearly specified reform goals were undermined from the very outset. In this insightful, detailed, and carefully argued study, Janelle A. Kerlin demonstrates how and why reforms, intended to improve services and increase citizen participation in social service programming, largely failed to meet expected goals. The politics of reform development—including political deals, exclusionary tactics, and hidden maneuvering by Polish policymakers—prevented any significant upgrade of services or real change in decision-making structures. Conflicting ideologies and pressures on policy actors stemming from historical, institutional, political, and international sources often resulted in compromises that led to unfavorable public service outcomes. In this book, Kerlin uses focused interviews with leading reform actors and a nationwide representative survey of two hundred public social service institutions to develop a model that connects the politics of the decentralization process with social service outcomes. Not only students of the former Soviet bloc, but also those interested in the links between politics and policy outcomes more broadly will find in this volume an informative and instructive case study that has far-reaching implications.

Author : Linda J. Cook
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801458231
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Postcommunist Welfare States written by Linda J. Cook and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1990s, the countries of the former Soviet Bloc faced an urgent need to reform the systems by which they delivered broad, basic social welfare to their citizens. Inherited systems were inefficient and financially unsustainable. Linda J. Cook here explores the politics and policy of social welfare from 1990 to 2004 in the Russian Federation, Poland, Hungary, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Most of these countries, she shows, tried to institute reforms based on a liberal paradigm of reduced entitlements and subsidies, means-testing, and privatization. But these proposals provoked opposition from pro-welfare interests, and the politics of negotiating change varied substantially from one political arena to another. In Russia, for example, liberalizing reform was blocked for a decade. Only as Vladimir Putin rose to power did the country change its inherited welfare system. Cook finds that the impact of economic pressures on welfare was strongly mediated by domestic political factors, including the level of democratization and balance of pro- and anti-reform political forces. Postcommunist welfare politics throughout Russia and Eastern Europe, she shows, are marked by the large role played by bureaucratic welfare stakeholders who were left over from the communist period and, in weak states, by the development of informal processes in social sectors.

Author : Janelle A. Kerlin
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 1603446222
Total Pages : 190 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Social Service Reform in the Postcommunist State written by Janelle A. Kerlin and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this detailed study, Janelle A. Kerlin demonstrates how and why reforms, intended to improve services and increase citizen participation in social service programming, largely failed to meet expected goals. The politics of reform development - including political deals, exclusionary tactics, and hidden maneuvering by Polish policymakers - prevented any significant upgrade of services or real change in decision-making structures." "Kerlin uses focused interviews with leading reform actors and a nationwide representative survey of two hundred public social service institutions to develop a model that connects the politics of the decentralization process with social service outcomes." "Not only students of the former Soviet bloc but also those interested in the links between politics and policy outcomes more broadly will find in this volume an informative and instructive case study that has far-reaching implications."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Author : Alfio Cerami
Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780230230262
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.61/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Post-Communist Welfare Pathways written by Alfio Cerami and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-10-29 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Author : Kati Kuitto
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1784711985
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Post-Communist Welfare States in European Context written by Kati Kuitto and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2016-02-26 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Author : Melani Cammett
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 0801470323
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Politics of Non-state Social Welfare written by Melani Cammett and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-25 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across the world, welfare states are under challenge—or were never developed extensively in the first place—while non-state actors increasingly provide public goods and basic welfare. In many parts of the Middle East and South Asia, sectarian organizations and political parties supply basic services to ordinary people more extensively and effectively than governments. In sub-Saharan Africa, families struggle to pay hospital fees, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) launch welfare programs as states cut subsidies and social programs. Likewise, in parts of Latin America, international and domestic NGOs and, increasingly, private firms are key suppliers of social welfare in both urban and rural communities. Even in the United States, where the welfare state is far more developed, secular NGOs and faith-based organizations are critical components of social safety nets. Despite official entitlements to public welfare, citizens in Russia face increasing out-of-pocket expenses as they are effectively compelled to seek social services through the private market In The Politics of Non-State Social Welfare, a multidisciplinary group of contributors use survey data analysis, spatial analysis, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic and archival research to explore the fundamental transformation of the relationship between states and citizens. The book highlights the political consequences of the non-state provision of social welfare, including the ramifications for equitable and sustainable access to social services, accountability for citizens, and state capacity. The authors do not assume that non-state providers will surpass the performance of weak, inefficient, or sometimes corrupt states but instead offer a systematic analysis of a wide spectrum of non-state actors in a variety of contexts around the world, including sectarian political parties, faith-based organizations, community-based organizations, family networks, informal brokers, and private firms.

Author : National Research Council
Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 9780309059299
Total Pages : 534 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Transforming Post-Communist Political Economies written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1998-03-02 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ground-breaking new volume focuses on the interaction between political, social, and economic change in Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States. It includes a wide selection of analytic papers, thought-provoking essays by leading scholars in diverse fields, and an agenda for future research. It integrates work on the micro and macro levels of the economy and provides a broad overview of the transition process. This volume broadens the current intellectual and policy debate concerning the historic transition now taking place from a narrow concern with purely economic factors to the dynamics of political and social change. It questions the assumption that the post-communist economies are all following the same path and that they will inevitably develop into replicas of economies in the advanced industrial West. It challenges accepted thinking and promotes the utilization of new methods and perspectives.

Author : Leslie Holmes
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199551545
Total Pages : 177 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Communism: A Very Short Introduction written by Leslie Holmes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-27 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collapse of communism was one of the most defining moments of the twentieth century. This Very Short Introduction examines the history behind the political, economic, and social structures of communism as an ideology.

Author : Pieter Vanhuysse
Publisher : Central European University Press
ISBN 13 : 9637326790
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Divide and Pacify written by Pieter Vanhuysse and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite dramatic increases in poverty, unemployment, and social inequalities, the Central and Eastern European transitions from communism to market democracy in the 1990s have been remarkably peaceful. This book proposes a new explanation for this unexpected political quiescence. It shows how reforming governments in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have been able to prevent massive waves of strikes and protests by the strategic use of welfare state programs such as pensions and unemployment benefits. Divide and Pacify explains how social policies were used to prevent massive job losses with softening labor market policies, or to split up highly aggrieved groups of workers in precarious jobs by sending some of them onto unemployment benefits and many others onto early retirement and disability pensions. From a narrow economic viewpoint, these policies often appeared to be immensely costly or irresponsibly populist. Yet a more inclusive social-scientific perspective can shed new light on these seemingly irrational policies by pointing to deeper political motives and wider sociological consequences. Divide and Pacify contains a provocative thesis about the manner in which political strategy was used to consolidate democracy in post-communist Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Pieter Vanhuysse develops a tight argument emphasizing the strategic use of welfare and unemployment compensation policies by a government to nip potential collective action against it in the bud. By breaking up social networks that might otherwise facilitate protest, through unemployment and induced early retirement, governments were able to survive otherwise difficult economic circumstances. This novel argument linking economics, politics, sociology, and demography should stimulate wide-ranging debate about the strategic uses of social policy.

Author : David J. O'Brien
Publisher : Woodrow Wilson Center Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801869600
Total Pages : 454 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rural Reform in Post-Soviet Russia written by David J. O'Brien and published by Woodrow Wilson Center Press. This book was released on 2002-03-20 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rural Reform in Post-Soviet Russia reviews change in agricultural and rural life since 1990 through historical, political, sociological, and anthropological investigation. The contributors' interest is not so much in agriculture itself but in agrarian issues such as the relationship between rural interests and changing Russian institutions, the economic and social organization of rural households, and the quality of life in rural families and villages.