Varieties of Autocratic Family Policy Expansion: Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey

Protecting and promoting the family is at the heart of most autocratizing regimes.
Yet, what kind of family policies do these regimes actually pursue? In this
exploratory paper, we shed light on the differing pathways of four autocratizing
regimes with a similar familialistic outlook: Russia under Vladimir Putin and the
United Russia party, Turkey under the Justice and Development Party, Hungary
under Fidesz and Poland under the Law and Justice Party. We do so by tracing
with qualitative methods the development of family policies in terms of their legal structure and distributive implications. Our analysis is placed in a wider
institutional context considering a broader range of social policies that affect
women and families. The impact of policies is studied beyond the intended and
(over-)politicized fertility rates.
Our analysis reveals that the four regimes share a common vision of the role of
the family and maintain a pro-natalist and anti-gender discourse. In the name of
celebrating the sacred family they initiated new policies to protect families,
including flagship programs that were launched with much fanfare. Yet, a closer
analysis of a comprehensive range of family-related policies reveals that they used different policy tools, including universal, social insurance- and tax-based
programs, and social policy “by other means”. The configuration of these
programs have clearly distinguishable distributive profiles benefitting distinct
strata of women and families. This comparative study contributes to our
understanding of the redistributive causes behind the long-term popularity of
third wave autocratizers also among women.