Conceptualizing poverty in the social policy and practice of socialist Yugoslavia

Abstract

The focus of this paper is on the concept of poverty and its implementation into regulations, policies and practices for the protection of the poor during the period in which socialism was the official doctrine in Yugoslavia (1945-1991). The introductory part of the paper is followed by the Marxist explanations of poverty and their adaptation in socialist Yugoslavia. The description and analysis of poverty during the socialist period in Yugoslavia, as well as its ideological and administrative constructions and reconstructions in and through the social welfare system are put forward in the central part of the paper. The objective of the paper is to present the way that the concept of poverty was framed in the policy field, how it was interpreted, as well as how these policies were implemented with a view to guaranteeing "freedom from necessity" in the society of post-war Yugoslavia. The methodological approach deployed is the qualitative analysis.