Romania

In ¹ the interwar period, Romanian statesmen were at first unwilling and then very much unable to steer the priorities of domestic politics toward social rights. In the 1920s, National Liberal Party governments reluctantly expanded employment-related social entitlements—which Linda Gordon termed the “first track” of welfare—as a way of minimally keeping up with international commitments. ² In 1929, politicians opposed to the Liberals’ capital-friendly approaches won elections based on a promise to create policies that were more supportive of peasants and workers. The progressive platform of the 1929 National Peasant government was undermined by the economic crisis and the Peasantists’ own authoritarian turn by 1932. This political shift is how, at the peak of the crisis, increases in social spending became explicitly prohibited as part of internationally agreed austerity packages accompanying foreign loans. Social assistance policies, “the second track of welfare,” meant to support those who could not benefit from contributory schemes, also became stingier.