Why not the Nordic state model in Lithuania? Trends in Lithuanian and Norwegian social policies

This chapter offers an overview of social policy in Norway and Lithuania after World War II, the development of a social security system in independent Lithuania, and the main characteristics and changes in the social policies of Norway and Lithuania in the context of globalization. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss why Lithuania did not choose to implement the Nordic model of social policy and to identify factors that may influence the choice of a particular model. The institutional social-democratic Norwegian welfare state model is selected as a reference point for analysing the Lithuanian social security system. One of the main conclusions of the chapter is defining the Lithuanian social policy model as drifting from the corporative to the liberal marginal model and now having more differences from the Nordic (Norwegian) model as it was in 1990-1991, that is immediately after the Soviet Occupation.