This book aims to provide an explanation for the acquiescence of populations in east-central Europe in the face of falling living standards and rising unemployment in the early and mid 1990s. A central place in the argument is given to social policy as part of a ‘divide and pacify’ strategy, whereby governments found the means to immobilise possible protests. These varied slightly between countries. In Hungary, disability retirement was particularly important. In Poland, it was early retirement. In the Czech Republic, there were a variety of means to support employment and delay redundancies. In all cases, the policies could be judged economically irrational. The Polish and Hungarian policies squeezed resources for other areas of social policy. The Czech policy led to difficulties in the later 1990s. However, the author is cautious of such negative judgements. These social policies were important support both for the economic transformation and for the institutionalisation of democracy.

Parts of Vanhuysse's argument are convincing. He demonstrates that levels of protest were low. 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 was no tradition of deciding who would lose their job first in a system that gave permanent employment and the oldest employees were therefore likely to feel the most threatened in the economic downturn of the early 1990s. They were saved by a ‘great abnormal pensioner boom’. Between 1989 and 1996, the number of old-age pensioners increased by 5 per cent in the Czech Republic, by 20 per cent in Hungary, and by 46 per cent in Poland. The numbers on disability pensions accounted for a significant part of this increase although, Vanhuysse suggests, this could hardly reflect a sudden increase in disabilities.

The biggest open question left from the book is whether, and how far, there was a conscious policy to demobilise real or potential protests and, if so, why these particular forms were chosen. 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. By then, of course, a powerful pensioner lobby had been created which, as pensioners had little chance of gaining income from work, then fought to defend established benefits.

The missing element here is a link between policy making and awareness of protests that did take place, or fears of ones that might be threatened. Although their number was small, there was an extreme sensitivity in all these countries to any signs of protest. Unemployment hit hardest in a number of isolated industrial towns, often dependent on one firm, and their scope for protest was small. More notice was taken of actions in big cities and these did influence policy makers very directly. Coal miners were particularly important in Poland and the Czech Republic and reference is made to a major miners’ strike in Poland in 1992. In the Czech case, there were threats of strike action over pension terms and, remarkably, there were even complaints from some mines that they might not face closure when the terms offered to others seemed attractive. In this case, which Vanhuysse does not follow, his thesis of pension terms disarming potential protest would seem very plausible.

The comparison with the Czech Republic points to the importance of the wider context. Vanhuysse repeats the well-known argument that rising unemployment was held in check by maintaining soft budget constraints in established industries. This is partly myth. There were delays in implementing a bankruptcy law passed in 1991 and this followed from fears of the impact of a similar law in Hungary. Nevertheless, other financial constraints on enterprises were severe and led to sharp reductions in employment. The workforce in industry fell by 31 per cent in Poland but by 35 per cent in the Czech Republic from 1989 to 1993. Czech coal mining employment fell over the same period by 51 per cent, against 28 per cent in Poland.

The distinctive Czech features were the lighter social cost of these declines. Part of the labour force had been made up from pensioners, who simply lost their jobs, and from Slovaks and even Poles, who returned home, putting the cost on another country. More importantly, there was a very rapid expansion in a new service sector, particularly in the big urban centres where protest could be most dangerous. These activities had been particularly weakly developed before, and their rapid expansion reduced the pressure for a ‘divide and pacify’ policy. Moreover, there already was an earlier retirement age than in Poland where it fell to an average of 59 for men in the early 1990s.

Vanhuysse has directed attention on to an important issue in social policy formation in east-central Europe in the early 1990s. However, a complete picture would require setting his argument in the context of other developments within those economies and, above all, it needs to be backed up with evidence on how policy decisions were taken. He provides a strong argument that elements of social policy served to reduce the potential for protest. It remains to be proven how far that explains the policy choices that were made.