How Politics and Institutions Affect Pension Reform in Three Postcommunist Countries
The author examines the political and institutional processes that produced fundamental pension reform in three post-communist countries: Hungary, Kazakhstan, and Poland. He tests various hypothesis about the relationship between deliberative proce...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2000/03/437882/politics-institutions-affect-pension-reform-three-post-communist-countries http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22209 |
| Summary: | The author examines the political and
institutional processes that produced fundamental pension
reform in three post-communist countries: Hungary,
Kazakhstan, and Poland. He tests various hypothesis about
the relationship between deliberative process and outcomes
through detailed case studies of pension reform. The
outcomes of reform were similar: each country implemented a
mandatory funded pension system as part of reform, but the
extent, and configuration of changes, greatly differed.
Countries with more veto actors - social and institutional
actors with an effective veto over reform - engaged in less
radical reform, as theory predicted. Poland and Hungary
generated less radical change than Kazakhstan, partly
because they have more representative political systems, to
which more associations, interest groups, and proposal
actors have access. Proposal actors shape the reform agenda
and influence the positions of key veto actors. Pension
reform takes longer in countries with more veto and proposal
actors, such as Poland and Hungary. Legacies of policy, the
development of civil society, and international
organizations, also profoundly affect the shape and progress
of reform. The author sees pension reform as happening in
three phases: commitment-building, coalition-building, and
implementation. He presents hypothesis about tradeoffs among
inclusiveness (of process), radicalism (of reform), and
participation in, and compliance with, the new system. The
hypothesis: including more, and more various, veto and
proposal actors early in the deliberative process, increases
buy-in and compliance when reform is implemented, but at the
expense of faster and greater change. Early challenges in
implementation in all three countries, nut especially in
Kazakhstan, suggest the importance of improving buy-in
through inclusive deliberative processes, where possible. |
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