Divide and Pacify: Strategic Social Policies and Political Protests in Post-Communist Democracies

Strike figures show little activity when compared with a variety of western European countries and the bias in Hungarian and Polish social policy spending was towards precisely those policies that would demobilise discontented employees. There is some discussion of how the relevant legislation was passed, with one former Polish minister referring to many isolated decisions which had unintended consequences and a Hungarian view that the significance of the consequence of decisions - in terms of escalating pension spending - was only recognised after the event.