Any discussion about the welfare state of a country which does not belong to the
existing welfare regime typologies (Esping-Andersen 1990; Ferrera 1996; Cerami
2006) needs careful examination of its historical and institutional welfare
arrangements. Macedonia, since its independence from the Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991 was very rarely on the comparative welfare map.
Some of the attempts to depict characteristics of the social welfare model in
Macedonia sent different messages. Deacon’s pioneering work on post communist
social policy indicated that “parts of (ex)Yugoslavia witness emergence of a
modified form of conservative corporatism in which a ‘deal’ is struck between
some elements of old nomenklatura and some elements of the working class to
modify the free play of market forces, at the price of less economic growth, in order
to secure a greater degree of state protection for both nomenklatura and skilled
workers” (Deacon et al. 1992, p. 179). Revising his work later in 1997, Deacon
together with Stubbs noted that social integration of Macedonia is interconnected
and dependent on management of ethnic divisions in the country (Deacon et al.
1997, p. 191). In addition, Deacon and Lakinska also indicated that Macedonia, like
many other post communist countries does have a developed social protections
system, but that it needs to be sustained in the face of economic and political
pressures to cut benefits and services and meet international competitiveness’
requirements (Deacon and Lakinska 1997, p. 50). In a similar fashion, Agh has
pointed out that “the real stabilization of Macedonia can occur only by economic
consolidation and durable solution of ethnic problems in the multi-ethnic and
multicultural state” (Agh 1998, p. 179). A scholar from the region, Puljiz, hasargued that a “mixed” model of post socialist welfare state has emerged in Post
Yugoslav countries, in which the previously existing Bismarckian model of social
insurance has been complemented with elements from liberal and social democratic
model (Puljiz 2008, p. 82). Similarly, Stubbs, in his research on the Western
Balkan, states that “the region inherits historical legacies in social protection
which are a complex product of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the latter part of
the nineteenth century, influenced by Bismarckian ideas and practices on social
insurance, which came to frame modern welfare settlements (Stubbs 2009, p. 36).