Changing Multi-level Governance: The Regained Centrality of National Policy-makers in Recasting Pensions in Central Eastern Europe

The chapter focuses on two decades of pension reforms in Central Eastern Europe (CEE). While many analysts have stressed the progressive shift towards multi-level governance, where the World Bank (WB) and the European Union (EU) have increased their influence on national policymakers, evidence from CEE proves national governments have recently re-gained a more central role. While in the 1990s and early 2000s, national policymakers have followed the ‘pension privatisation’ paradigm proposed by International Organisations (IOs); in the wake of the recent economic and financial crisis, some countries have reduced the role of private pension funds while others have continued to privatize their system. Through an actor-centred approach, the present contribution sheds light on the reasons why national governments have re-gained a central role in reforming pensions. In a context marked by weak lock-in mechanisms, actors’ strategies have been crucial to shape governance dynamics. Both national and supra-national actors have altered their governance priorities, and consequently their role in policymaking, on the base of their own political and policy goals. In particular, the changing pensions governance is interpreted to be the consequence of a number of factors: the partial retreat of IOs from the field; the changing policy goals of the EU in the wake of the economic crisis; and the new opportunities for national policymakers to pursue credit-claiming strategies.