LAW AND MUTUAL ASSISTANCE IN FAMILIES: A COMPARISON OF SOCIALIST

The dissolution of widespread legal ties in the former Soviet sphere of influence poses a unique opportunity to study the dynamics and transformation of the relationship between multiple legal spheres.1 First, like the socialist authorities before them, post-socialist governments have used law extensively to transform society. Second, national governments made considerable gains in legislative independence, and both decentralisation policies and privatisation have contributed to the emergence of new local competences. Bearing this in mind, parts of this process can be analysed as a form of ‘de-globalisation ’ (F. and K. von Benda-Beckmann and Griffiths 2005: 7). Some regions have even been described as having “local legal systems that seem to have been dormant for many decades” which have now regained importance and characterize new conditions of legal pluralism (K. von Benda-Beckmann 1999: 26). In other cases, globally transmitted neo-liberal concepts and accession to the EU, or the extreme case of German unification, have also diminished differences and resulted in more standardisation and an intense process of globalisation. With reference to the cases of Hungary and eastern Germany examined here, I am going to argue that post-socialist reforms actually led to more similarity in the legal sphere of family policies than 1 See also Peleikis and Beyer in this volume