This article shows how two separate traditions of social movement studies can be combined to better understand the dynamics of collective action. It does so by integrating frame analysis with the emotional approach to social movements. It does so in studying the nationwide protests that took place in Slovakia in 2018, which forced the prime minister to resign. For frames to resonate with the public, they need to play on emotions. Although some scholars have pointed out that frames play on emotions, they have not offered any theory showing which emotions each type of frame needs to get resonance. In this article, we present a model that connects different emotions to different frames. This model can be applied to the study of all types of mass protests.

When do CSOs succeed in influencing policy when working under one-party regimes? This article compares two cases in which Environmental CSOs (ECSOs) in China tried to influence policies. This article argues that the difference between success and failure is connected to the types of frames that the organizations use and how well these frames can link to meta-cultural master frames. Most studies have concentrated on how activists apply frames to get resonance among the population to mobilize people against the regime. However, under an authoritarian regime that greatly represses public demonstrations, it is often more important to frame arguments in a manner that gets resonance among policymakers than it is to gain resonance among the population. Even though it has been rare to analyze how CSOs frame their arguments vis-a-vis policymakers, some recent studies of Chinese CSOs have done so. However, these studies do not go deep enough in elaborating the cultural and historical contexts of these framing strategies. Our study goes deeper in this direction, by claiming that in order to get resonance the frames must be in line with the cultural norms of society. Consequently, we link culture to the "master frames." Scholars are often reluctant to discuss master frames because the term itself is a bit diffuse and it is not always apparent how to use it. By tying master frames to a meta-cultural analysis, we make it clearer how the concept of master frames can be useful for analyzing the framing strategies of political entrepreneurs.

The following is a list of learning and research resources on topics that are central to this themed section, namely the male-breadwinner and adult worker models, and their alternatives; intersectionality; the views of employers and workplace culture; the role and influence of informal care; and the tendency toward dualisation.

In this thematic issue, the authors explore family policies in seven different countries: Hungary, Hong Kong, Lithuania, Romania, Taiwan, Turkey, and the UK. A common theme is that in analysing these policies, we need to take into account more than gender, but rather we need to also consider issues such as class, poverty, religion, and the use of migrant workers. Thus, these countries have all been moving away from the traditional male breadwinner model; however, the adult-worker model is also inadequate for describing the nuances of these countries’ policies. Instead, an intersectional approach makes more sense, combining gender with the other important socioeconomic issues just mentioned.

In this article, we analyse how different governments have dealt with situations, labelled as ‘crises’ in the international and national discourses. More specifically, we analyse how the Czech, Hungarian and Slovak governments framed and dealt with their social policies during the 2008 ‘financial crisis’, the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’, and the 2020 ‘Covid crisis’. We argue that sometimes governments and the mass media frame the situation as a crisis, when objectively it would be hard to argue empirically that there really was a crisis. At other times, according to objective criteria, there is ample evidence that there is indeed a crisis, but the government tries to deny it for political reasons. Despite differences in objective conditions and differences in political constellations, none of the policymakers in the three countries took advantage of the windows of opportunity that the alleged crises presented to carry out path-changing social policy? changes. Instead, the changes we rather small and usually only temporary; thus, showing the importance of path dependency even during crisis situations.

In recent decades, populist parties and leaders have obtained great political success. Since populism plays on voter dissatisfaction with the political elite, we might expect that dissatisfaction with the welfare state should also play a role. In this study, we suggest measures to assess welfare state performance (WSP), and we examine how assessment of WSP helps to explain support for the populist political parties– both rightwing and leftwing. Our findings are based on the sixth round of European Social Survey data that has a special module on democracy, which includes questions that enables us to measure WSP. This article shows that WSPis a significant predictor in explaining support for populist parties, but the dynamics differ between how WSP influences support for leftwing populist (LWP) and rightwing populist (RWP) parties.

This article analyses the developments of the welfare state's reaction to the pandemic in Czechia, Hungary and Slovakia during 2020–2022, asking whether the changes in social policy represent only temporary responses to the challenges of the pandemic, or if the changes will likely lead to long-run transformative changes in social policies. All three countries applied emergency adaptive changes to some extent except for job protection, as the short-time work schemes represent a permanent change in Czechia and Slovakia. Furthermore, the absorption capacity of the welfare state was relatively good, which enabled the countries to avoid the negative social impacts of the crisis in terms of increased unemployment, poverty, and social exclusion. We argue the governments did not introduce permanent third-order change because they already introduced such changes during the transition to the market economy in which they introduced a low-expenditure welfare state trajectory. During the pandemic, this trajectory limited their fiscal space for introducing reforms that could radically expand the welfare state. Policy learning and political constellations also had some influence.

This article begins by discussing some of the main approaches that have emerged to gender and family policy, before proceeding to discuss more modern trends. It begins by discussing institutional approaches, such as the male-breadwinner model, defamilialisation, degenderisation. Then it discusses cultural approaches, such as the national ideals of care, gendered moral rationalities, and Hakim’s preference theory. Then this article continues by briefly discussing attempts to broaden the discussion by bringing in children (including through the capabilities approach) and by adding an intersectional perspective.

This article argues that a new type of populism is emerging that combines entrepreneurial populism with centrist populism and takes as an example the success of the Czech party ANO and its leader Andrej Babis. Entrepreneurial populist leaders are businesspeople who claim that because they have been successful in running a business, they can run a government efficiently, like a business. Entrepreneurial populists lack a coherent ideology and instead take advantage of where the political opening is greatest in the political spectrum. In the Czech Republic in the 2010s the opening was greatest in the centre, as much of the population had social liberal attitudes, although there were no social liberal parties to represent them. To test these hypotheses, the article presents a series of regression models explaining party vote choice in the 2013 and 2017 Czech elections. The findings confirm a demand for a centrist social liberal party that did not exist at that time.

When the communist system collapsed, many observers were disappointed to discover that those living in postcommunist countries often had conservative views toward gender relations. Paradoxically, a large majority living in post-communist countries seem to support more “traditional” gender roles, in which the man is the primary breadwinner, and the mother is the chief person responsible for the family. The question arises whether the surveys released in the third decade following the collapse of the communist regimes continue to reflect these differences in gender views. This is especially the case because of the multiple disadvantages women face in the labor market and society. Such developments can lead to precarious employment and weakened social positions, and consequently the overall precariousness of families since gender attitudes make up an important component of the “gender culture” and “gender order”. Using data from the ISSP (International Social Survey Project) on “Gender and the Family” from 1994 to 2012, this chapter argues that the influence of the communist legacy continues in some ways but also seems to wane over time.