Neo‐liberalism by Decay? The Evolution of the Czech Welfare State

Abstract

In this article we analyse the evolution of the Czech welfare state and we examine the factors explaining its path. We show that although the Czech welfare regime exhibits a 'mixed profile' that includes conservative and universalist elements, it is increasingly moving in a more liberal, residualist direction -not because of conscious steps but rather through decay. Governments have often zig-zagged in their policies and resorted to symbolic reforms at times rather than implementing ideologically based, consistent policies. We argue that historical and sociological institutionalism combined with a social-capital approach can explain this decay better than the more common arguments about economic pressures combined with ideological hegemony or the protest-avoidance strategy. In particular, the social capital approach adds to our institutional framework by explaining why cutbacks in welfare programmes have not met much opposition, even though public opinion surveys consistently show support for more generous welfare policies, and why policies have deviated so much from political rhetoric.

Czech Study of Public Policy in the Perspective of Three Dominant Approaches

“…• administrative science (e.g., Hendrych, 2003); • public economics or public finance (e.g., Strecková, Malý et al, 1998;Malý & Pavlík, 2004;Peková, 2008;Půček & Ochrana, 2014); • public and social policy as a separate discipline (Potůček et al, 1994;Damohorský et al, 1996;Potůček et al, 2003;Veselý & Nekola, 2007;Nekola, Geissler, & Mouralová, 2011); • the phases of public policy-making process as part of social policy and social work (Winkler, 2002(Winkler, , 2007Hora, Suchanec & Žižlavský 2014); • particular policy domains such as social policy (e.g., Saxonberg & Sirovátka, 2009), health policy (e.g., Hnilicová, Dobiášová & Tulupova, 2012;Dlouhý, 2014), education policy (e.g., Pabian, Šima & Kynčilová, 2011;Kohoutek, 2014) etc. ; • constructivist approach to public policy as governance (Colebatch, 2005); • reception of French public policy analysis (Novotný, 2006(Novotný, , 2008a(Novotný, , 2008bKráľová, 2006Kráľová, , 2008Kráľová, , 2010; • policy analysis as part of political science (Fiala, 1991(Fiala, , 1995Fiala & Schubert, 2000;Schubert & Blank, 2005); • decision-making and analysis in politics as modern political analysis (e.g., Prorok, 1996).…”

From Worlds to Cases: Case Selection and ‘Other Worlds’ in the Welfare Modelling Business

“…The aim is in part to identify 'a geographically based cluster of states that seem to share some distinctive features' (Hay and Wincott, 2012: 62). In the case of CEE, these consist of single case studies of individual nations such as Poland (Keryk, 2010), Hungary (Lelkes, 2000) and the Czech Republic (Saxonberg and Sirovátka, 2009); sub-regions such as the Central European 'Visegrad Four' (Cerami, 2008), three Baltic states (Aidukaite, 2004), Balkan nations (Sotiropoulos et al, 2003) and the entire CCE region (Deacon, 1993;Bohle, 2007). Attention has been fixed relatively more on three regions (for example, Esping-Andersen, 1996; Arts and Gelissen, 2010) including East Asia (see Kwon, 1997;Wilding, 2008), Central or Eastern Europe (CEE, see Fenger, 2007;Aidukaite, 2009), and Latin America (see Franzoni, 2008;Barrientos, 2009).…”

Long‐term Care in Central and South‐Eastern Europe: Challenges and Perspectives in Addressing a ‘New’ Social Risk

“…Cerami 2006; Hacker 2009). In the Czech Republic, for example, social insurance involves strong universal elements and has, in the recent past, incorporated neo‐liberal elements, but more by decay than by an explicit policy choice in that direction (Saxonberg and Sirovatka 2009). In South‐Eastern Europe, for example in Croatia, welfare reform processes are embedded in the process of state‐building, the construction of national identity, the search for defining roles of state actors on central and decentralized levels, and, more recently, pressures to privatize care (Stubbs and Zrinščak 2009).…”