Path dependency and partisan interests: explaining COVID-19 social support programmes in East-Central Europe

ABSTRACT What factors influence governments' social policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis in East-Central Europe? We attempt to answer this question by analysing the social policy responses to the pandemic across three distinct institutional varieties and welfare states: Estonia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Drawing on extensive analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, we argue that the constraints on government agency posed by previous, posttransition patterns of social policymaking and their underlying core institutional legacies have a distinct influence on governments' distributive choices. Governments' partisan interests are reflected in some of the enacted measures, albeit in less consolidated parts of welfare state structures.