Divide And Pacify

Download or read book Divide and Pacify written by Pieter Vanhuysse and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2006-09-30 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite dramatic increases in poverty, unemployment, and social inequalities, the Central and Eastern European transitions from communism to market democracy in the 1990s have been remarkably peaceful. This book proposes a new explanation for this unexpected political quiescence. It shows how reforming governments in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have been able to prevent massive waves of strikes and protests by the strategic use of welfare state programs such as pensions and unemployment benefits. Divide and Pacify explains how social policies were used to prevent massive job losses with softening labor market policies, or to split up highly aggrieved groups of workers in precarious jobs by sending some of them onto unemployment benefits and many others onto early retirement and disability pensions. From a narrow economic viewpoint, these policies often appeared to be immensely costly or irresponsibly populist. Yet a more inclusive social-scientific perspective can shed new light on these seemingly irrational policies by pointing to deeper political motives and wider sociological consequences.

Download or read book Divide and Pacify written by Pieter Vanhuysse and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite dramatic increases in poverty, unemployment, and social inequalities, the Central and Eastern European transitions from communism to market democracy in the 1990s have been remarkably peaceful. This book proposes a new explanation for this unexpected political quiescence. It shows how reforming governments in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have been able to prevent massive waves of strikes and protests by the strategic use of welfare state programs such as pensions and unemployment benefits. Divide and Pacify explains how social policies were used to prevent massive job losses with softening labor market policies, or to split up highly aggrieved groups of workers in precarious jobs by sending some of them onto unemployment benefits and many others onto early retirement and disability pensions. From a narrow economic viewpoint, these policies often appeared to be immensely costly or irresponsibly populist. Yet a more inclusive social-scientific perspective can shed new light on these seemingly irrational policies by pointing to deeper political motives and wider sociological consequences. Divide and Pacify contains a provocative thesis about the manner in which political strategy was used to consolidate democracy in post-communist Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Pieter Vanhuysse develops a tight argument emphasizing the strategic use of welfare and unemployment compensation policies by a government to nip potential collective action against it in the bud. By breaking up social networks that might otherwise facilitate protest, through unemployment and induced early retirement, governments were able to survive otherwise difficult economic circumstances. This novel argument linking economics, politics, sociology, and demography should stimulate wide-ranging debate about the strategic uses of social policy.

Download or read book Permanent Emergency Welfare Regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa written by Alfio Cerami and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-03-18 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the relationship between development economics, social protection and democratization in the specific context of Sub-Saharan Africa. Moving existing theories of transformation into a new terrain, it sheds light on the exclusive origins of dictatorship and democracy.

Download or read book The Predistribution Agenda written by Patrick Diamond and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of predistribution is increasingly setting the agenda in progressive politics. But what does it mean? The predistributive agenda is concerned with how states can alter the underlying distribution of market outcomes so they no longer rely solely on post hoc redistribution to achieve economic efficiency and social justice. It therefore offers an effective means of tackling economic and social inequality alongside traditional welfare policies, emphasising employability, human capital, and skills, as well as structuring markets to promote greater equity. This book examines the key debates surrounding the emergence and development of predistributive thought with contributions from leading international scholars and policy-makers.

Download or read book The transatlantic divide written by Osvaldo Croci and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2024-07-30 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This books, available in paperback for the first time, examines the period between the military intervention against Serbia by NATO and the one in Iraq by the US. It has been a particularly turbulent one for transatlantic security relations. Is the malaise currently affecting the Transatlantic Alliance more serious than ever before and if so why? Will differences in the assessment of how to provide order and stability in the international system as well as in the evaluation of threats and how to respond to them mark the end of the Transatlantic Alliance? Or will the US, NATO, the EU, and EU member states work together, using different instruments and accepting a degree of division of labour, to pacify, stabilise and rebuild troublesome areas as they have done in South-Eastern Europe? This book, with contributions from leading American, Canadian and European scholars, analyses the reasons behind the latest crisis of the Transatlantic Alliance and dissects its manifestations.

Download or read book Postcommunism from Within written by Jan Kubik and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2013-08-26 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the decline of communism in the late twentieth century brought democracy, political freedom, and better economic prospects for many people, it also produced massive social dislocation and engendered social problems that were far less pronounced under the old regimes. The fall of state socialism led to enormously complex political, economic, social, and cultural transformations, and while political liberalization was a lofty goal, it was neither uniform in its effects nor unqualified in its benefits. Postcommunism from Within foregrounds the diversity of the historical experiences and current realities of people in the postcommunist region in examining how they are responding to these monumental changes at home. The original essays in this volume lay out a bold new approach to research on the postcommunist region, and to democratization studies more broadly, that focuses on the social and cultural microprocesses behind political and economic transformation. Thematic essays by eminent scholars of postcommunism from across the social sciences are supported by case studies to demonstrate the limitations of current democratization paradigms and suggest ways of building categories of research that more closely capture the role of vernacular knowledge in demanding, creating, and adapting to institutional change. A novel approach to understanding one of the greatest political and social transformations in recent history, Postcommunism from Within explores not just how citizens respond to political and economic restructuring engineered at the top but also how people enact their own visions of life, politics, and justice by responding to daily challenges.

Download or read book Rethinking Open society written by Michael Ignatieff and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-20 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The key values of the Open Society - freedom, justice, tolerance, democracy and respect for knowledge - are increasingly under threat in today's world. As an effort to uphold those values, this volume brings together some of the key political, social and economic thinkers of our time to re-examine the Open Society closely in terms of its history, its achievements and failures, and its future prospects. Based on the lecture series Rethinking Open Society, which took place between 2017 and 2018 at the Central European University, the volume is deeply embedded in the history and purpose of CEU, its Open Society mission, and its belief in educating sceptical but passionate citizens. This volume aims to inspire students, researchers and citizens around the world to critically engage with Open Society values and to defend them wherever they are at risk. The volume features contributions from, among others: Dorothee Bohle, Timothy Garton Ash, Jacques Rupnik, Steven Walt, Erica Benner, Robert Kaplan, Andras Sajo, Roger Scruton, Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, and Pierre Rosanvallon.