Governance of Activation Policies in the Czech Republic: Uncoordinated Transformation

Abstract

Activation policies represent one of the key common trends in the development of the welfare states in Europe (compare Van Berkel and Møller, 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; Sirovátka, 2007, 2008; Sirovátka 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.