Welfare is central to politics and societies worldwide, and it carries an often unstated but crucial political significance in post-Communist countries. Tomasz Inglot's book, which provides the first systematic overview of the emergence of welfare states and their cycles of growth and retrenchment over nearly a century of East Central European history, is a notable and timely contribution to the fields of comparative politics, historical social policy, and post-Communist studies. Inglot's dedication to this area of study sprang from his hard-earned experiences as a student organizer in the Polish Solidarity movement, arranging milk and bread deliveries to his fellow student protesters in early-1980s Wrocław, being imprisoned for his “subversive” acts, and finding refuge abroad and in academia.

With contemporary Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary evolving through changing state boundaries, foreign occupations, and a succession of dramatically divergent ideologies since the end of World War I, the question of how and why these countries' welfare systems had grown into their contemporary forms as of 2004 is both politically and economically significant. This book suggests that there are profound institutional continuities in welfare systems across very different epochs in these three (eventually four) countries. Inglot often uses the term “path dependency,” which Paul Pierson applied to characterize slow-moving and self-reinforcing tendencies that include feedback and learning. Path dependency highlights the enduring power of historical legacies and locks in certain practices and institutional solutions, resulting only in piecemeal change. A metaphor most fitting to describe path dependency is geological deposits, resting one on top of another. The historical and institutional weight of path dependency is well exemplified by the contemporary staying power of Communist-era welfare allocations that have remained exceptionally resistant to change in the region, withstanding even tectonic ideological shifts, recurring economic crisis, and exceptionally strong external pressure to cut back on their reach.

Continuities across East Central European social policies appear when independent variables—ideational foundations, state structures, and bureaucracies, for example—are separated from the actual welfare coverage and spending. Although Inglot defines welfare in relatively modest terms, his analysis covers some of the largest state-channeled allocations of taxpayers' moneys. Although comparing East Central European countries appears to fit the “most similar research design,” with Inglot highlighting how their welfare systems emerged from the same imperial-Bismarckian imprint, the study also shows that there are many important differences even among these countries.

Inglot follows a carefully laid-out historical-institutional analysis that identifies the timing, sequencing, and duration of expansion and retrenchment of insurance coverage, together with the decision-making structures that produced national trajectories, as the most important influences affecting different outcomes. Probably to the delight of materialists (including Marxist) and also as a nod to more recent postmaterialist (cultural studies) trends, Inglot highlights how both cultural sensitivities and economic conditions constrain choices in modifying welfare systems. But he does not clearly state whether he agrees with a more economics-oriented explanation, which sees general insurance schemes as the result of modernization (indeed, “modernization” itself would be a worthwhile topic of discussion in the East Central European context), or if he considers political regimes (ideology) and regime change as the crucial influence over adaptation in welfare systems. Employing tools from other theoretical schools of thought—such as Gøsta Esping-Andersen's classic typology of liberal, conservative, and social-democratic features of welfare (The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism [Princeton, 1990]), and comparative gender analysis of welfare regimes (various works by Ann Orloff and Birte Siim, for example)—would have enhanced Inglot's study.

As the first book to longitudinally compare East Central European welfare states, Inglot's book is vulnerable to mistakes and other difficulties. First, despite the important topic, the excellent combination of literatures, the sound methodology, and the crucial contemporary significance of the politics of welfare in East Central Europe, the message is swamped by data. Second, most previous research focuses nearly exclusively on postindustrial societies, and Inglot passes on a chance to challenge or modify these theories. East Central Europe offers good opportunities to establish new welfare theories as bridges to vast, rarely analyzed parts of the world, where welfare develops in leaps and bounds—or not at all. The unquestioned normalization of Western European theories and practices sneaks into Inglot's prose when he describes the East Central European welfare states as “incomplete,” ineffective, inefficient, and “misdeveloped” (310). In a broader comparative context, these terms appear judgmental and excessive.

Third, considering the post-Communist systems as “emergency welfare” denigrates Inglot's own thesis that earlier institutions and practices build on one another. On the one hand, Inglot argues that path dependency explains why serious retrenchment efforts in the post-Communist region have been much less successful than in Western Europe. On the other hand, Inglot displays important cases where spending on welfare has changed in significant ways (especially during crises) and earlier measures reversed themselves. The development of welfare in East Central Europe is indeed puzzling, but acknowledging the complexity of change and continuity should have produced a more clearly delineated account. Fourth, important analytical dimensions could also have easily enhanced the appeal and clarity of this complex study. The two main aspects that were missing for me were gender (as noted above) and the contribution of “determined policy agents,” i.e., individuals. The institutional history of bureaucracies may be the dominant feature in creating and maintaining path dependency, but the actual actors of these institutions are powerful people and personalities. Inglot refers to some of them in passing, but their personalities, political beliefs, and administrative skills could inject explanatory power to the “how and why” of welfare state development. Finally, the names of many notable non-English (especially Hungarian) scholars, politicians, and social institutions are misspelled, which detracts from the text.

Overall Inglot presents a carefully laid-out conceptual framework of nearly a century of welfare state development in three (with Czechoslovakia's split in 1993, four) very different, if geographically close, countries in East Central Europe.