Abstract
The paper deals with the lengthy processes of social policy transformation in Central and Eastern European post-communist countries. Parallel processes of political democratization, institutionalization of the market economy, globalization and Europeanization formed the relevant context of genuine domestic decision and implementation making.
As a result, we are witness to a gigantic societal experiment, which is very difficult to grasp in analytical terms. Our approach is based on thorough theoretical considerations.
First, eight post-communist Central and Eastern European countries that became EU Member States in May 2004, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, are exposed to comparative scrutiny in terms of their Welfare State arrangements and outcomes. Subsequently, the development of the Czech Welfare State is analyzed in more detail.
It is not possible to predict just what type of Welfare State will evolve, in the next decades, out of the present patchwork of broad variety of social policy experiments and approaches in the region.