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This is now the eighth issue of the Social Research series devoted to Central and Eastern Europe. The series began in 1988, before the momentous changes in the region, and has continued as these changes are played out in their various contexts. The series has attempted to track and examine the major manifestations of the transitions to democracy (more or less) and to market economies (more or less). So, while the first issue looked at the social research in the region, subsequent issues were titled, respectively: Where From, Where To; Nationalism: Central and East Europe, The East Faces West: The West Faces East; Nationalism Reexamined; and The Gains and Losses from the Transition to Democracy.
At first these issues focused exclusively on Central and Eastern Europe. However, as time passes and the problems faced by many of the former Soviet bloc countries become more and more the problems facing most other nations in the world, Social Research issues in this series have relaxed their focus and now include a broader range of articles. The current issue, The Future of the Welfare State: East and West, looks at a problem facing both Western and Eastern countries, although the sources and manifestations of the problem are not the same.
Clearly, one of the more painful consequences of the transition to democracy and market economies, which has not been without political fallout, has been the elimination of systems of social support. Although generally inadequate, these systems, which nevertheless provided some semblance of social security, are now frequently absent. In most of the former Soviet countries considered in this issue, the effects, not surprisingly, are most profound for the most vulnerable: the elderly, the unemployable, and, to some extent, women and therefore young children. Although the roots of the problem are not the same in the West, nevertheless most of these countries are also grappling with painful issues of social welfare-and again the groups most threatened are the most vulnerable. So parallels exist, as do important differences, and these matters provide the theme for this issue of Social Research. Arien Mack
Mikhail Dmitriev is the First Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Development in Russia.
Zsuzsa Ferge is a professor of sociology at the Institution of Sociology and Social Policy at Eotvos Lóránd University, Budapest. She is the author of The Social Quality of Europe (1997).
Ethan Kapstein is the Stassen Professor of International Peace in the Humphrey Institute and Department of Political Sciences at the University of Minnesota. He is co-editor of Sustaining the Transition (1997) and the author of Governing the Global Economy (1994).
Jacek Kochanowicz is an associate professor of economic history at Warsaw Universitv. He is co-author of The Market Meets its Match: Restructuring the Economies of Eastern Europe (1994).
Janos Ladányi is a professor of sociology at the University of Economics, Budapest.
Tatyana Maleva is a program associate at the Carnegie Center Moscow.
Salvatore Pitruzello is a visiting assistant professor of statistics at Columbia University.
Martin Potucek is the Director of the Institute of Sociological Studies and an assistant professor at Charles University in Prague. His most recent work in English is "Formation of Social Policies in Visegrad Countries" in Alestalo and Kosonen, eds., Welfare Systems and European Integration (1996).
Iveta Radicová is an assistant professor of political sciences at Comenius University in Bratislava. Her publications include Do We Know What We Want, and What Not? (1997) and Among People and About People (1995).
Guy Standing is the Director of the Special Project on Global Labour Market flexibility, International Labour Organisation. He is the author of Russian Unemployment and Enterprise Restructuring: Reviving Dead Souls (1996).
Julia Szalai is a professor in the Institute of Sociology at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and a founding member of the Center for European Studies in Budapest.
Iván Szelényi is a professor of sociology at the University of California- Los Angeles. He is the author of "The Theory of Post-Communist managerialism" in The New Left Review (1997) and Making Capitalism Without Capitalists (1998).
Igor Tomes is the University Professor of Social Policy and Law at Charles University in Prague. His works include Socialni Politika, Teorie a Mezinarodni Zkusenost (Social Policy, Theory and International Experience) (1997).
