Social-Policy and the Politics of Solidarity - Are They Any Prospects For Social-Democracy in East-Central-Europe

Abstract

Social policy affects the production of a new, or the reproduction of an existing political power structure in a society. This paper starts by contrasting the ''conservative-corporatist'' and ''social citizenship'' ideal types of social policy regimes of Western Europe with the ''Leninist'' ideal type of post-war Central and Eastern Europe. It interprets these three regimes in terms of three distinct strategies of attaining a different kind of solidarity. It addresses the question of how the respective forms of solidarity induced or reinforced the loyalty of different actors within each regime. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of the ''Leninist'' regime for actors in the current Czechoslovak political scene by examining how the organizational and ideological legacy of forty years of Marxist-Leninist rule constrains the options available to actors who advocate ''social citizenship'' as a model for social policy.