Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.3935/rsp.v9i3.155
Between Market, State and Community: Welfare Retrenchment and Hospice Development in Slovenia
Tatjana Fink
; Slovensko Društvo Hospic
Ann E.P. Dill
; Brown University
Abstract
Slovenia have undergone dramatic political and economic changes within the past decade. The Slovenian governments, driven by pressures both external (from the IMF, World Bank, and other agents of economic restructuring) and internal (of which the economic factors are, at present, key) have attempted to provide the legislative and institutional arrangements conducive to entering the global competition for capital and markets. Accompanying these efforts, and in some cases prompted by them, is a retreat from the welfare state, a reorganization and reduction of the role of the state in the provision of social welfare. Scholars and policy analysts who study the international trend of welfare retrenchment have a keen interest in the potential of the third sector, both to take over where the state leaves off and to develop voluntary or nonprofit services competitive on the market level with those of public and commercial agencies. Of interest, too, is the role that third sector organizations might play in civic vitalization, community development, and social capital building. Depending on nonprofits to mend the social safety net after state socialism, then, has both material and value-laden consequences. It is these consequences that are spelled out in our paper. In this paper we examine the opportunities and barriers to third sector development in social welfare sectors, focusing illustratively on the case of hospice in Slovenia. We assess competing interests, strategic stances taken by a key organization leader and the impact of transformation in social values. There are local efforts moving towards new possibilities in post-socialist countries. Beyond the impact of state regulation, successful nongovernmental organizations may depend on forces operating on an even more macro level, such as their ability to establish legitimacy as part of international movements (as with hospice). Our research shows that development of the third sector of social welfare can only be understood in relation to a particular context, taking account of local knowledge, the agency of reformists, and policy legacies.
Keywords
nonprofit organizations; hospice development; third sector; welfare mix; welfare reform; policy legacies; Slovenia; social values
Hrčak ID:
30118
URI
Publication date:
1.3.2002.
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