Negotiating Welfare in Postcommunist States
Negotiating Welfare in Postcommunist States
复制标题
后共产主义国家的福利谈判
DOI：
10.5129/001041507x12911361134398
复制
发表时间：
2007
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
L. Cook
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
L. Cook
世界各地的福利国家都面临着紧缩和重组、削减公共支出以及采用符合市场的福利模式的压力。这种压力在后共产主义时代的东欧、中欧和前苏联尤为强烈。随着这些国家在1990年代初进入市场转型和衰退，它们沿袭的广泛、基本的社会提供制度在财政上变得不可持续和无效。作为回应，大多数政府启动了基于减少补贴和福利以及社会部门私有化的自由范式的改革项目，这些项目将使福利提供的平衡从国家转向市场。然而，后共产主义国家的紧缩和自由化模式却以令人费解的方式出现分歧。在俄罗斯，政府自由化的福利改革项目在20世纪90年代的大部分时间里都受阻。继承下来的中央集权主义的福利计划和结构在持续的经济衰退中保持不变。自由主义重组是在1990年代末才开始的，当时恰逢经济复苏。近十年来，波兰的过渡民主国家随着经济衰退而增加了福利支出，并逐步放开了福利结构。苏联解体后的哈萨克斯坦独裁政权实施了大幅削减开支和激进的自由化。到20世纪90年代末，这三个州已经将不同的福利模式制度化，这些模式在支出模式、公私混合以及排斥和国家退出措施方面存在差异。为什么后共产主义福利国家从相似的起点产生了如此不同的变革轨迹和结果？部分原因在于经济下行压力的不同程度。尽管所有后共产主义国家都经历了过渡性衰退，但东欧国家的衰退要比前苏联国家浅得多，而且恢复得更快，这使它们能够更好地维持福利供应。但经济学解释在解释变化模式方面是有限的。即使在经济衰退最严重的时候，后共产主义国家在福利支出方面的表现也不同：波兰增加了整体福利支出(即社会支出占GDP的百分比)；俄罗斯维持以前的水平；哈萨克斯坦削减福利支出。它们走向自由化的程度和时机也与经济和财政压力无关。尽管经济和财政状况更好，但波兰比俄罗斯更早推出自由化的结构性改革。哈萨克斯坦的自由化比俄罗斯更快、更深入，同时遵循着类似的经济轨迹。此外，这三个国家都已基本恢复
Welfare states everywhere have been under pressure to retrench and restructure, to reduce public expenditures, and to adopt market-conforming welfare models. Such pressures have been especially intense in postcommunist East Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. As these countries moved into market transition and recession dur ing the early 1990s, their inherited systems of broad, basic social provision became financially unsustainable and ineffective. In response, most governments initiated reform projects based on a liberal paradigm of reduced subsidies and entitlements and social sector privatization, projects that would move the balance in welfare provision away from the state and far toward the market. Yet the patterns of retrenchment and lib eralization in postcommunist states diverged in puzzling ways. In Russia the government's liberalizing welfare reform project was blocked for most of the 1990s. Inherited statist welfare programs and structures were kept in place amidst ongoing economic decline. Liberal restructuring proceeded only at the end of the 1990s, when it coincided with economic recovery. The transitional democracy in Poland increased welfare expenditures as its economy declined and liberalized welfare struc tures gradually over the decade. The authoritarian post-Soviet regime in Kazakhstan implemented deep expenditure cuts and radical liberalization. By the end of the 1990s these three states had institutionalized distinct welfare models that differed in expendi ture patterns, public-private mixes, and measures of exclusion and state withdrawal. Why did postcommunist welfare states produce such divergent trajectories of change and outcomes from similar beginnings? Part of the answer lies in the differing intensity of downward economic pressures. While all postcommunist states experienced transitional recessions, East Central European states had much shallower downturns than the former Soviet states and recov ered sooner, allowing them to better maintain welfare provision. But economic explana tions are limited in accounting for patterns of change. Postcommunist states behaved differently with regard to welfare expenditures even in the depths of recession: Poland increased overall welfare effort (that is, social expenditures as percent of GDP); Russia sustained previous levels; and Kazakhstan cut. Nor did the extent and timing of their movement toward liberalization correlate with economic and fiscal pressures. Poland introduced liberalizing structural reforms sooner than Russia despite better economic and fiscal conditions. Kazakhstan liberalized more rapidly and deeply than Russia while following a similar economic trajectory. Moreover, all three had substantially recovered