Pierre Laroque And The Welfare State In Postwar France

Eric Jabbari examines Pierre Laroque's contribution to the rise of the French welfare state, namely his role as the architect of the social security plan which was adopted by the provisional government in 1945. The conception of the Laroque Plan was a product of his work as a civil servant and social policy expert, and it reflected the diverse combination of influences: his background in administrative law and his onetime support for the corporatist management of industrial relations. These experiences were all the more notable since they were marked by his belief in the necessity of an increased state interventionism which was mitigated by administrative decentralisation. The purpose of social policy, in his mind, was to cultivate social solidarity, a task which could best be achieved if the beneficiaries of this policy could be encouraged to participate in its implementation. These concerns remained central to his conception of the state and society long after he lost his enthusiasm for corporatism, and contributed to the shape of post-war social security.

An examination of Pierre Laroque's contribution to the rise of the French welfare state, and the shape of post-war social security.

Social security and welfare in France - includes population data, social services, cooperatives, friendly societies, social work, health services, housing, family policy, maternity, children and student welfare, juvenile delinquency, working conditions, self employed and rural workers, collective bargaining, workers participation, leisure, aid to handicapped (disabled person) and older people, survivors benefits, social services, social workers, cost and financing of welfare.

Even though the policy impact of Catholicism has increasingly been acknowledged, existing scholarship lacks a coherent view on its changing influence over time and in different political contexts. In this book, Fabio Bolzonar investigates the influence of Catholicism on developments in French social protection from World War II to the mid-2010s. He discusses the factors that have favoured or inhibited it and explores the hybridization between Catholic values and secular principles in the social engagement of Catholic actors in secular France. By doing so, this multidisciplinary study integrates current scholarship, which has given limited attention to the changing patterns of Catholic involvement in the social policy domain over a long period of time, and the renewed influence of Catholic values in secularized societies. Catholic mobilization has relocated from the political to the civil society sphere, making voluntary organizations and social movements, rather than political parties, the main channels for defending Catholic values in secular France. Rather than marginalizing Catholicism, this process has opened up new opportunities for Catholic actors and values to play a significant role in society and politics. Bolzonar identifies two divergent scenarios that define Catholic social engagement in contemporary France: either the strengthening of new forms of institutional collaboration between Catholic-inspired philanthropic organizations and public administrations in the interest of socially vulnerable citizens, or the emergence of new ideological conflicts on gender- and sexuality-related issues.

An incisive, comparative study of the development of Post–World War II progressive politics in the United States, Britain, and France After the end of World War II, Britain, France, and the United States were faced with two very different choices: return to the civic order of pre-war normalcy or embark instead on a path of progressive transformation. In this ambitious and original work, Isser Woloch assesses the progressive agendas that crystalized in each of the three allied democracies, tracing their roots in the interwar decades, their development during wartime, the struggles to establish them after the war’s end, and the mixed outcome in each country. A fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, Woloch is a highly regarded scholar who adds the United States to a discussion that is usually focused solely on Europe. His enlightening work successfully argues that the postwar moment deserves a more prominent place in the history of progressive politics.

Examining the ways in which societies treat their most vulnerable members has long been regarded as revealing of the bedrock beliefs and values that guide the social order. However, academic research about the post-war welfare state is often focused on mainstream arrangements or on one social group. With its focus on different marginalized groups: migrants and people with disabilities, this volume offers novel perspectives on the national and international dimensions of the post-war welfare state in Western Europe and North America.

At a time when the future of the welfare state is the object of heated debate in many European countries, this edited collection explores the relationship between this institution and social rights. Structured around the themes of the politics of social rights, questions of equality and social exclusion/inclusion, and the increasing impact of market imperatives on social policy, the book explores the effect of transformations in the welfare state upon social rights and their underlying rationalities and logics. Written by a group of international scholars, many of the essays discuss a number of urgent and topical issues within social policy, including: the social rights of asylum seekers; the increasing marketization and consumerization of public welfare services; the care of the elderly; and the obligation to work as a condition of access to welfare benefits. International in its scope, and interdisciplinary in its approach, this collection of essays will appeal to scholars and students working in the fields of law and socio-legal studies, sociology, social policy, and politics. It will also be of interest to policy makers and all those engaged in the debate over the future of the welfare state and social rights.

While the first half of the 20th century was characterized by total war, the second half witnessed, at least in the Western world, a massive expansion of the modern welfare state. A growing share of the population was covered by ever more generous systems of social protection that dramatically reduced poverty and economic inequality in the post-war decades. With it also came a growth in social spending, taxation and regulation that changed the nature of the modern state and the functioning of market economies. Whether and in which ways warfare and the rise of the welfare state are related, is subject of this volume. Distinguishing between three different phases (war preparation, wartime mobilization, and the post-war period), the volume provides the first systematic comparative analysis of the impact of war on welfare state development in the western world. The chapters written by leading scholars in this field examine both short-term responses to and long-term effects of war in fourteen belligerent, occupied, and neutral countries in the age of mass warfare stretching over the period from ca. 1860 to 1960. The volume shows that both world wars are essential for understanding several aspects of welfare state development in the western world.