The Revenge of History – The Institutional Roots of Post-Communist Family Policy in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland

The authors combine historical and sociological institutional analysis to show that despite the
political and socio-economic transformation in 1990s, the institutional development during and
before the communist era provides the best explanation for current childcare policies in Central
Europe. While most authors have concentrated on policy changes that have taken place in the region
since 1989, this article concentrates on the historical roots of these policies and shows that today’s
policies are highly influenced by a certain dynamics that had already emerged under communist rule.
It shows that a historical institutional approach, which analyses the ‘gendered logic of appropriateness’
and policy legacies at various critical junctures, can explain why family policies in Central
Europe had already begun to differ during the communist era, why these main differences continue
and why even the changes that have taken place follow logically from historical-institutional
developments.