"This paper develops a theoretical framework for explaining instances of reform and continuity in various social policy areas in central and eastern European countries, focusing on Hungary and Poland. Drawing on the welfare state literature on the region, I outline various pressures for reform and pressures for continuity that influence the propensity for change, but I argue that it is the defining cleavages between the parties and the characteristics of central and eastern European party systems, interacted with the various types of pressures on both, that explains why we see dramatic reform in some cases and historic continuity in others. "

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