Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T12:52:49.755Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Western welfare states watched from the East during the Cold War: condemnation, competition, and creative learning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

Tomasz Inglot
Tomasz Inglot*
Affiliation:
Department of Government, Minnesota State University-Mankato, Mankato, MN, USA
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines international influences of the Western welfare state on social policy ideas, institutions and reforms in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. It identifies three types of Eastern reactions to or interactions with the West: “condemnation” of various “bourgeois” conceptions of social welfare; “competition” or increased attention to redistribution and social needs of the population stemming from the demonstrable successes of Western welfare states; and “creative learning” or implicit acknowledgment that every industrial society, including the Soviet style centrally planned economies, had to adopt at least some elements of modernized social welfare models or policy originally developed in the West. Paradoxically, first the explicit and later more implicit rejection of the Western welfare state, including the social-democratic and various “third way” models, eventually led to the rise of neoliberal and anti-welfare attitudes among many Eastern social policy reformers during the last decade of communist rule and beyond, after 1989.

Keywords

welfare stateCold WarEastern EuropeSoviet blocsocial policy diffusionauthoritarian welfare regime
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , October 2013 , pp. 241 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Taylor & Francis

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Appelbaum, A. (2012). Iron curtain: The crushing of eastern Europe, 1944-1956. New York, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Breslauer, G. (1978). On the adaptability of Soviet welfare-state authoritarianism. In Ryavec, K. W. (Ed.), Soviet society and the communist party (pp. 3–25). Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Briggs, A. (1961). The welfare state in historical perspective. European Journal of Sociology, 2, 221–258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brzezinski, Z. (1967). The Soviet bloc: Unity and conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Castles, F. G. (1986). Whatever happened to the communist welfare state? Studies in Comparative Communism, 19, 213–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castles, F. G., Liebfried, S., Lewis, J., Obinger, H., & Pierson, C. (Eds.). (2010). The Oxford handbook of the welfare state. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collier, D., & Messick, R. E. (1975). Prerequisites vs. diffusion: Testing alternative explanations of social security adoption. American Political Science Review, 69, 1299–1311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, L. (1993). The Soviet social contract and why it failed. Welfare policy and workers’ politics from Brezhnev to Yeltsin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cook, L. (2007). Postcommunist welfare states. Reform politics in Russia and Eastern Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Danecki, J., & Wasilkowski, A. (Eds.). (1973). Postęp gospodarczy a społeczenstwo: wypowiedzi naukowców, publicystów, działaczy społecznych i gospodarczych [Economic progress vs. society: essays by scholars, journalists, and social and economic activists]. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza.Google Scholar
Deacon, B. (1983). Social policy and socialism: The struggle for socialist relations of welfare. London and Sydney: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Deacon, B. (2007). Global social policy and governance. London: Sage.Google Scholar
De Deken, J. J. (1994). Social policy in postwar czechoslovakia: The development of old age pensions and housing policies during the period 1945–1989 (EUI Working Paper SPS No. 94/13). Florence: European University Institute.Google Scholar
Ekiert, G., & Hanson, S. M. (2003). Capitalism and democracy in central and Eastern Europe: Assessing the legacy of communist rule. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ferge, Z. (1979). A society in the making: Hungarian social and societal policy 1945–1975. New York, NY: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Fidelis, M. (2010). Women, communism, and industrialization in postwar Poland. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Forrat, N. (2012). The authoritarian welfare state: A marginalized concept (Working Paper No. 12-005 (September). Comparative-Historical Social Science (CHSS) Working Paper Series). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Haggard, S., & Kaufman, R. R. (2008). Development, democracy, and the welfare states: Latin America, Asia, and East Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hauslohner, P. (1987). Gorbachev's social contract. Soviet Economy, 3, 54–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglot, T. (2003). Historical legacies, institutions and the politics of social policy in hungary and Poland, 1989–1999. In Ekiert, G. & Hanson, S. E. (Eds.), Capitalism and democracy in Eastern and Central Europe: Assessing the legacy of the communist rule (pp. 210–247). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Inglot, T. (2008). Welfare states in east central Europe, 1919–2004. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kettunen, P., & Petersen, K. (Eds.). (2011). Beyond welfare state models. Transnational historical perspectives on social policy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kligman, G., & Verdery, K. (2011). Peasants under siege: The collectivization of Romanian agriculture, 1949–1962. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1986). Contradictions and dilemmas: Studies in socialist economy and society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kott, S., & Droux, J. (2013). Globalizing social rights. Geneva/London: ILO/Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madison, B. (1968). Social welfare in the Soviet Union. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Mahoney, J., & Rueschemeyer, D. (2003). Comparative historical analysis in the social sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malloy, J. (1979). The politics of social security in Brazil. Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh University Press (Pitt Latin America Series).Google Scholar
Meyer, A. G. (1970). Theories of convergence. In Johnson, C. (Ed.), Change in communist systems (pp. 313–342). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Michalewski, A. (1972). Ekonomia dobrobytu: prezentacja i próba analizy [Economics of welfare: Presentation and attempt at analysis]. Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Ekonomiczne.Google Scholar
Modliński, E. (1975). Ubezpieczenie społeczne a “swoboda manewru finansowego” [Social insurance and the freedom of economic maneuver]. Państwo i Prawo (Warsaw), 8–9, 146–151.Google Scholar
Narojek, W. (1991). Socialistyczne “welfare state” [Socialist “welfare state”]. Warsaw: PWN.Google Scholar
Obinger, H., & Schmitt, C. (2011). Guns and butter: Regime competition and the welfare state during the cold war. World Politics, 63, 246–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orenstein, M. A. (2008). Privatizing pensions: The transnational campaign for social security reform. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, P. (1996). The new politics of welfare state. World Politics, 48, 143–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, P. (2004). Politics in time: History, institutions, and social analysis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piotrowski, J. (1957). O niektórych nieporozumieniach na temat reformy ubezpieczeń społecznych [About some mistunderstandings concerning social insurance reform]. Przegląd Ubezpieczeń Społecznych (Warsaw), 7, 193–196.Google Scholar
Rajkiewicz, A. (1977). Socjalnaja polityka [Social policy]. Moscow: Progress.Google Scholar
Rajkiewicz, A. (1986). Założenia polityki społecznej w Polsce [Basic principles of social policy in Poland]. In Prandecka, B. (Ed.), Funkcje opiekuńcze państwa socjalistycznego [Welfare functions of the socialist state]. (Studia Ekonomiczne no. 14) (pp. 48–64). Warsaw: Instytut Ekonomii/Polska Akademia Nauk/Ossolineum.Google Scholar
Rimlinger, G. (1971). Welfare policy and industrialization in Europe, America, and Russia. New York, NY: Wiley Press.Google Scholar
Sułek, A. (2010). “To America!” Polish sociologists in the United States after 1956 and the development of the empirical sociology in Poland. East European Politics and Societies, 24, 327–353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thelen, K. (2003). How institutions evolve: The political economy of skills in comparative historical perspective. In Mahoney, J. & Rueschemeyer, D. (Eds.), Comparative historical analysis in the social sciences (pp. 208–240). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, M., Snavely, K., & Groth, A. J. (1985). Worker welfare systems in communist states: A comparative diachronic perspective. In Groth, A. J. & Wade, J. J. (Eds.), Public policy across nations: Social welfare in industrial settings (pp. 113–128). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Vic, G., & Manning, N. (1980). Socialism, social welfare and the Soviet Union. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Weyland, K. (2006). Bounded rationality and policy diffusion: Social sector reform in Latin America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wilensky, H. (1975). The welfare state and equality. Berkley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Zakres funkcjonowania opieki społecznej. (1949). The scope and functions of social welfare. Government document. Archiwum Akt Nowych (Polish State Archives), Warsaw, 237/xxviii-2, pp. 1–10.Google Scholar
Zawadzki, S. (1964). Państwo dobrobytu: doktryna i praktyka [Welfare state: Doctrine and practice]. Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.Google Scholar
Zieliński, T. (1982). Podstawowe problemy reform ubezpieczeń społecznych w PRL [Basic problems of social insurance reform in the People's Republic of Poland]. Praca i Zabezpieczenie Społeczne (Warsaw), 4, 1–13.Google Scholar