Social Policy in Occupied European Countries 1939–1945
14 – 16 May 2015
Prague
http://www.mua.cas.cz/index.php/cs/
Please send in your abstracts of 500 words maximum
by 15th December 2014 to: socialpolicysince1939@gmail.com
Masaryk Institute and Archive of the Academy of Sciences of the
Czech Republic, Prague, in cooperation with John Amos Comenius
University, Prague
World War II initiated a radical shift in most European countries’
social policies. On the one hand, the experience from the previous
1930s economic crisis had its effect, showing the limits of existing
social protection systems. On the other hand, the 1939–1945 war
mobilization on both sides of the conflict requested new social
engineering methods within the total war conditions. Surprisingly
enough, the postwar social policy in continental Europe largely
continued in methods introduced and implemented by the
occupation powers during the war. Viewed from the perspective of
historians, neither these social policy strategies, to a great extent
apparently autonomous in relation to the ideological
legitimization of the 1930s and 1940s political regimes (liberal
democracy, Fascism / National Socialism, Bolshevik Socialism),
nor geographical regions and their populations, exploited via these
strategies for the goals of National Socialist expansion, should not
remain unnoticed.
The conference aims at comprehending social policy as a tool of
the National Socialist rule in a comparative perspective and at
depicting its basic functioning frameworks in the occupied
European countries. Comparing western and eastern occupied
regions shall enable not only to characterize significant traits
within everyday social policy practice but also to explain various
occupation strategies in greater depth.
Original papers on the conference topics related to the
employment, family and health policies, focusing on various
aspects of social administration, rule structures and
communication forms are welcome
Consequently, the following areas of interest within the social
policy in the occupied countries may be defined:
The social security project in the perspective of Fascist /
National Socialist and Communist regimes;
Regulating employment as a social policy? – in particular labour
law, administration bodies’ employment-related activities,
work rationalization programmes;
Work, performance, adaptation: in particular the issues of work
team functioning, wages, trade union activities, staff welfare,
organization of leisure;
Public healthcare as a healthy population project? – Social
inclusion and exclusion via health policy, forms and scope of
care, healthcare availability;
Family in the whirl of nationalist needs – in particular the
organization of family care, interconnection of private and
public spheres, social work, care for mother, household
functioning rationalization;
Social assistance in the total war conditions;
Comparative study on social policy;
Social policy in expert discourse.
Conference languages: English, German
Please send in your abstracts of 500 words maximum
by 15th December 2014 to: socialpolicysince1939@gmail.com
Other conference-related queries shall be gladly addressed by:
Radka Šustrová
E-mail: sustrova@mua.cas.cz
