Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Haney, Lynne

Titel

INVENTING THE NEEDY: GENDER AND THE POLITICS OF WELFARE IN HUNGARY

Erscheinungsjahr

2002

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Sociological Abstracts

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Examines the welfare system in pre- & postsocialist Hungary, drawing on data obtained in Budapest, 1993-1996, via (1) ethnographic fieldwork in the 3 primary welfare institutions; (2) interviews with welfare workers, state psychologists, local government officials, & policymakers (total N = 31); & (3) archival data, primarily 1,203 case files from child & family service organizations & enterprise documents from 5 factories. Rather than a clear demarcation between state socialist, & welfare capitalist systems, what is revealed is a more gradual change in the policies & ideologies of the welfare system, particularly in terms of shifting conceptualizations of need & redistributive policies, processes, & institutions. A three-tiered periodization is developed to differentiate three Hungarian welfare regimes: welfare society (1948-1968); maternalist welfare state (1968-1985), & liberal welfare state (1985-1996). Specific variations between each are identified in terms of the role of the state in determining need, other "architects of need," eligibility criteria, the site & mode of welfare re/distribution, & the institutional apparatus involved. A feminist approach allows analysis of how the process of figuring, & reconfiguring the dynamics of welfare helped shape gender relations. It is concluded that for welfare politics to be transformative, it must be linked to feminist politics. K. Hyatt Stewart