Tomáš Sirovátka

Failing Family Policy in Post-Communist Central Europe

Abstract This article examines the developments of family policies in four post-communist countries (the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary). A general tendency has emerged of implementing familist, gendered policies that encourage women to leave the labor market to raise children. The interplay of the ideological, economic and institutional legacy of the communist past with new economic, social and political conditions coupled with shifts in values have greatly influenced these policies.

The Governance of Active Welfare States in Europe

List of Tables and Figures Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements The Governance of Active Welfare States R.van Berkel, W.de Graaf & T.Sirovatka The Administration of Income Provision and Activation Services R.van Berkel Accelerating Governance Reforms: The French Case A.Eydoux & M.Beraud Fragmented Governance Continued: The German Case I.Dingeldey Steering with Sticks, Rowing for Rewards: The New Governance of Activation in the UK S.Wright The Governance of Activation Policies in Italy: From Centralized and Hierarchical to a Multi-level Open System Model? P.R.Graziano & A.Raue The Liberal Governance of a Non-liberal Welfare State? The Case of the Netherlands R.van Berkel & W.de Graaf Marketization in a Federal System: New Modes of Governance in Unemployment Insurance and Social Assistance in Switzerland F.Ehrler & F.Sager Governance of Activation Policies in the Czech Republic: Uncoordinated Transformation T.Sirovatka & J.Winkler Decentralization and Back to Centralization: The Swedish Case R.Minas Governance of Integrated Activation Policy in Finland V.Karjalainen & P.Saikku The Governance of Active Welfare States in Europe in a Comparative Perspective R.van Berkel, W.de Graaf & T.Sirovatka

Governance of the activation policies in Europe: introduction

Purpose – The purpose of this introduction to the special issue is to give an overview of the key aspects of the governance of activation policies as discussed in the existing literature. It explains the focus and contribution of this special issue and provides a brief summary of the main findings in the individual articles.Design/methodology/approach – In this special issue the comparative analysis of the key aspects of governance of activation policies like centralization/decentralization, new public management, marketization and network governance is covered, accompanied by an assessment of the role of implementation conditions in shaping the real trends of governance reforms of activation policies. Further, the effects of governance reforms and the influence of EU governance on the dynamics of national activation policies are discussed. This comparative analysis leads to a typology of the “worlds of governance” of activation policies in Europe.Findings – All the countries show certain comparable conve...

The Governance of Active Welfare States

All over Europe, activation or active labour-market policies have become important instruments to promote the transition from welfare to work, that is, to (re)integrate unemployed people dependent on social insurance or social assistance in the labour market. Activation policies, that is programmes and services aimed at promoting the employability and labour-market participation of unemployed people, play a key role in making welfare states more activating and in reducing welfare state dependency. The European Employment Strategy, which contains specific guidelines with respect to the introduction of activation programmes, clearly endorses this orientation of social policies. European countries reveal significant variety in their activation strategies and polides: in the public expenditure on activation,1 in the nature and content of activation programmes, in the coverage of programmes and in the treatment of various target groups, and so on (Barbier, 2004; Dingeldey, 2007). Nevertheless, the social problems of unemployment and welfare state dependency are dealt with in quite different ways nowadays in the European countries compared with, say, two decades ago.

Seeking the Balance Between Work and Family after Communism

Summary During the 1990s the Central-European governments all took steps in varyingdegrees toward implementing more conservative, re-familization policies, which support women in their roles as mothers and make it more difficult for them to remain in the labor market. This article discusses the relationship between gender attitudes and gender policy in Central Europe and the latest changes in both. We focus on two countries, Catholic Poland, and the secular Czech Republic, in order to control for the role of Catholicism as an explanatory factor of familism. Beside statistical sources, administrative data and information from interviews with policy makers, we use data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 1994 and 2002 on gender and family, analyzing them at both the micro and macro levels. Our study shows that post-communist re-familization policies are coming increasingly into contradiction with the needs and aspirations of the populace, which is becoming more positive towards gender equality.

Re-familisation of the Czech Family Policy and its Causes

In this paper we analyse the shift of family related policies (benefits, daycare services and labour market policies) from the state-socialist model toward re-familisation in the Czech Republic after 1989. We demonstrate that the policies negatively influence the possibilities for parents—and especially mothers—to balance work and family life. We concentrate on the question of why the government implemented such policies, despite their negative consequences. Our analysis indicates that the communist ideological legacy (disadvantageous conditions for ideology of feminism, poor experiences with the quality of daycare) and the communist economic legacy (pressures on the public budget) have played a major role in shaping post-communist family policies. Our analysis also indicates that this legacy may be beginning to break down as the policies of re-familisation are coming into conflict with the needs and aspirations of the population and policy makers become more and more forced to confront the fertility problem.

Governance reforms and their impacts on the effects of activation policies

In this paper we are dealing with the question whether the expectations of improved effects due to governance reforms have been met in nine EU countries and how they are associated with the specific characteristics of the governance of activation. We conclude that the effects of the governance reforms are not unequivocally in favour of the reforms.

Emergence of new modes of governance in activation policies: Czech experience

Purpose – The paper deals with the question to what extent implementation conditions influence the profile of activation policies in the Czech Republic. In this way, it helps to clarify more general questions: how are broader objectives of these policies specified at the bottom level of implementation and why activation policies differ among countries, although guided by similar general objectives and principles.Design/methodology/approach – The findings are based on implementation case studies carried out at several local labour offices during the pilot stage and later during the routine stage of implementation of Individual Action Plans (IAPs).Findings – The paper shows that in the pilot stage of IAPs, the employability approach of enforced activation originated from the top‐down and was adopted at the local level; however, in a fragmented way due to unfavourable implementation conditions (above all poor staffing and a lack of activation programmes). It follows from these very conditions that, in the ro...

When do policies become path dependent? the Czech example:

This article asks the question of why some social policies can be path dependent, while others are not, even if the country goes through what clearly seems to be a ‘critical juncture’ caused by exogenous shocks. We argue that in the Czech Republic labour market policies represent a clear break with the past, while healthcare and family policies have been path dependent to various degrees. There are several reasons. First, during the first years of the transition policymakers gave greater priority to labour market issues. Second, labour market policies were less constrained than the other policy areas, both because the government had to create new institutions in this area rather than rely on old ones and because these new institutions had not yet built up popular support as the old institutions had. Third, labour policy was not as influenced by policy legacies.

Governance of activation policies in the Czech Republic:uncoordinated transformation

Activation policies represent one of the key common trends in the development of the welfare states in Europe (compare Van Berkel and Moller, 2002; Serrano Pascual, 2004; Zeitlin and Trubek, 2005), no matter that individual national activation strategies are far from being uniform. Policies aiming to increase labour-market participation seem to be appropriate for achieving both the goal of sustainable public finance and that of eradication of poverty and social exclusion. In post-communist countries the policies of activation are being implemented in a specific societal and institutional context: certain failures of governance and implementation conditions have already been identified (Winkler and Zižlavský, 2004; Sirovatka, 2007, 2008; Sirovatka et al., 2007). In this chapter we examine the question as to what specific kind of governance of activation policies have emerged in the Czech Republic and, secondly, the various effects of the specific mode of governance of activation policies. The chapter is structured as follows: after the introductory part we characterize the institutional framework of activation. In the third section we explain the key trends of governance of activation policies since 2004 in the Czech Republic. In the fourth part we assess the effects of governance of activation policies, and in the last and concluding section we discuss the main findings.