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AbstractThis article documents and compares the social policies that the governments in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) implemented to combat the first wave of COVID‐19 pandemic by focusing on Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia. Our findings show that governments in all four countries reacted to the COVID‐19 crisis by providing extensive protection for jobs and enterprises. Differences arise when it comes to solidaristic policy responses to care for the most vulnerable population, in which CEE countries show great variation. We find that social policy responses to the first wave of COVID‐19 have largely depended on precious social policy trajectories as well as the political situation of the country during the pandemic.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore urban mobilisation patterns in two post-Soviet cities: Vilnius and Moscow. Both cities were subject to similar housing and urban policy during Soviet times, and they have implemented urban development using neoliberal market principles, provoking grassroots opposition from citizens to privatisation and marketisation of their housing environment and local public space. However, the differing conditions of democratic Lithuanian and authoritarian Russian public governance offer different opportunities and set different constraints for neighbourhood mobilisation. The purpose is to contrast local community mobilisations under the two regimes and highlight the differences between and similarities in the activists' repertoires of actions in two distinct political and economic urban settings.Design/methodology/approach– The paper employs qualitative methodology using data from semi-structured interviews conducted with community activists and state officials, presented using a comparative case study design.Findings– Although, citizens' mobilisations in the two cities are reactions to the neoliberalisation of housing and local public space, they take different forms. In Vilnius they are institutionalised and receive formal support from national and local authorities. Moreover, support from the EU encourages organisational development and provides material and cognitive resources for grassroots urban mobilisations. In contrast, residents' mobilisations in Moscow are informal and face fierce opposition from local authorities. However, even in an authoritarian setting, grassroots mobilisations evolve using creative strategies to circumvent institutional constraints.Originality/value– Little attention has been paid to grassroots urban mobilisations in post-Soviet cities. There is also a lack of comparative attempts to show variation in post-Soviet urban activism related to housing and local public space.