Parties and Policy: Evaluating Economic and Partisan Influences on Welfare Policy Spending during the European Post-Communist Transition

Abstract

Research shows that social welfare expenditures in post-Communist Europe continued to increase during the dual transition. This article analyses the economic and political factors that influence these changes in budgets for total welfare spending, and more specifically, pension assistance. I find that the economic hardship and budgetary shortfalls of the transition play the most prominent roles in the adjustments to total spending levels. And while these factors also heavily influence the modifications to pension funding, the strength of the right parties in parliament has an independent impact in increasing pension changes. I argue that this relationship reflects a short-term association between the right's liberal economic plans, their policy structural adjustments and rising pension budgets.