Response of Central European Civil Security Systems to the Economic Crisis

Abstract

The public sector across Europe and elsewhere was affected by the economic crisis which fully unfolded in 2008. Considerable attention has been paid in the literature to the impacts of related budgetary cuts on social welfare, while some other areas remain largely under-researched. One of such areas is the so-called civil security, where no such endeavour has been attempted so far. In order to fill this gap, the paper examines the civil security systems of Central European countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary), employing a qualitative comparative analysis. Taking on the systems perspective, the article inquires how the stress posed by the economic crisis affected the civil security systems - their structure and financing. The paper builds on the findings from a 7th FP project, “ANVIL”, within which data on civil protection and disaster management systems were collected.