Now available open access, the book “Social Policy, Poverty, and Inequality in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union: Agency and Institutions in Flux” takes stock of the diverse and divergent welfare trajectories of post-socialist countries.
GRIP is happy to announce that the book “Social Policy, Poverty, and Inequality in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union: Agency and Institutions in Flux,” is now available open access. The publication can be downloaded here and from BORA.
This book takes stock of the diverse and divergent welfare trajectories of post-socialist countries across central, eastern, and southeastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It traces the impacts in terms of poverty, well-being, and inequality of over two decades of transformation, addressing both the legacy effects of socialist welfare systems and the installation of new social, political, and economic structures and, in many cases, new independent nation-states. Authors from different disciplines address key aspects of social protection including health care, poverty reduction measures, active labor market policies, pension systems, and child welfare systems.
You can also watch interviews with editors Paul Stubbs and Tatiana Chubarova where they present the book.
To order hard-copies of the book visit ibidem Press or Columbia University Press.
About the editors:
Sofiya An (5 August 1966 – 3 September 2019) was an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nazarbayev University (Astana, Kazakhstan). With a Master’s degree in Social Work from Columbia University in New York City (2002) and a PhD from the University of Toronto (2014), her research interests were at the intersection of post-Soviet social policy and global, or transnational, social policy. In her research, she examined post-Soviet changes in welfare institutions, the Soviet legacies, and the agency of state and non-state domestic and global policy actors. Her comparative work on child care policies and practices in post-Soviet states contributed considerably to practitioners’ and policy makers’ understandings and formed the basis for a clear analysis of good practice in this field. She was a member of the European Social Work Research Association and co-convenor of the Special Interest Group on Post-Soviet and Post-Socialist Social Work.
Tatiana Chubarova holds PhD (Social Policy, LSE) and Doctor of Sciences (Economy, Russian Academy of Sciences) degrees and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Economy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. Her professional interests include health and social policy in Russia in a comparative perspective; health care financing and administration; gender issues. Currently she is interested in studying the role of the modern state in social welfare provision, specifically instruments used by governments to cover population health needs. Dr. Chubarova contributed to a number of books such as Health Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe: Options, Obstacles, Limited Outcomes (ed. by J. Nemec and J. Bjorkman. Eleven Publ., Hague 2014); Implementation of New Public Management Tools: Experience from Transition and Emerging Countries (ed. by J. Nemec, M. S. de Vries. Bruylant, Bruxelles 2015); Comparative Health Care Federalism (ed. by K. Fierlbeck, H. A. Palley, Ashgate. 2015). She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of the New Economic Association and Mir Peremen (both in Russian).
Bob Deacon (28 May 1944 – 1 October 2017) was Honorary Professor in Global Social Policy at the University of York, UK, and Emeritus Professor of International Social Policy, University of Sheffield, UK. Over a fifty-year academic career, Bob was a key figure in radical social policy, the social policy of socialism and post-socialism, and, latterly, in global and regional social policy. In addition to his three key books on the topic: Global Social Policy (with Michelle Hulse and Paul Stubbs, Sage, 1997), Global Social Policy and Governance (Sage, 2007), and Global Social Policy in the Making (Policy Press, 2013), Bob maintained a commitment to advancing progressive social policy through establishing links between academic, advocacy, and policy-making fields.
Paul Stubbs is a UK-born sociologist who is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Economics, Zagreb, Croatia. His main research interests focus on civil society and social movements, social policy, and policy translation. He is currently undertaking research on historical aspects of Yugoslav socialism and the Non-Aligned Movement. His recent publications include Making Policy Move (with John Clarke, Dave Bainton, and Noémi Lendvai, Policy Press), Transformations in Global and Regional Social Policies (edited with Alexandra Kaasch, Palgrave Macmillan) and Social Inequalities and Discontent in Yugoslav Socialism (co-edited with Rory Archer and Igor Duda, Routledge). He is a member of the Editorial Board of Critical Policy Studies and the Croatian Journal of Social Policy.