Cracking the Nest Egg: Comparing Pension Politics in Post-Communist Russia and Hungary

Abstract

Growing fiscal challenges and ageing populations have made pension reform a pressing issue. Two particularly salient areas of pension reform have been: raising the retirement age; and structural reforms like the adoption and reversal of pension privatisation. The authors compare two very similar cases: Russia and Hungary in the post-communist period. Both countries faced growing demographic and fiscal challenges prompting pension reform, but at the time of reform Hungary was democratic and Russia was authoritarian. Some scholars predicted that authoritarian governments would be better able than democratic ones at enacting unpopular, but arguably necessary, economic reforms. Others argue that democratic governments can more easily enact policy changes because of greater confidence about public opinion. Additionally, authoritarian policymaking can be uniquely slowed by bureaucratic in-fighting. The authors find support for the position that democratic governments can be more flexible: thus offering important insight into how regime type shapes policymaking.