Marginalized Groups, Inequalities and the Post-War Welfare State by Monika Baár Paul van Trigt

Author:Monika Baár, Paul van Trigt [Monika Baár, Paul van Trigt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781032087412
Google: Ni9mzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2021-06-30T01:37:33+00:00

6 Managing the transition from war to peace

Post-war citizenship-based welfare in Italy and France, 1944–1947

Giacomo Canepa

Introduction

The most relevant comparative studies on the impact of war on the patterns and pathways of Welfare State development have emphasized the importance of demobilization, welfare benefits and educational programmes for veterans and refugees among the long-term policy repercussions of the World Wars.1 The relations between post-war policies, party politics and groups of victims, such as widows, orphans, disabled veterans and the unemployed, have been examined in depth especially for the post-WWI era. By contrast, the historiography on the aftermath of WWII has identified the role of Communist parties, the European-wide process of constitution-making, the integration of the labour movement into the active life of the state and a powerful commitment to welfare as the most important aspects of the post-war political transitions of 1945.2 The post-war period, notably the aftermath of the war, is a key moment in the construction of European welfare states: on the one hand, military occupations, the circulation and propaganda of foreign models, and the presence on the ground of international organizations allowed for the entanglement of national and international actors and policies; on the other hand, the widespread awareness of the inadequacies of the collapsed existing systems and the social crisis created by the war called for reforms.

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the impact of the measures directed at categories of recipients other than wage earners, such as marginalized war-torn groups, on the systems of social protection. How did post-war needs impact existing welfare states? I will therefore seek to connect the reintegration of veterans and refugees into society and the labour market with the transformations of the Welfare State, by comparing post-war assistance in two European countries, France and Italy. I will examine Italian and French governmental structures devised to manage the transition from war to peace during the “post-war moment”: the Commissariat, and later the Ministère des Prisonniers, déportés et réfugiés (Ministry for prisoners, deportees and refugees, MPDR, November 1943–November 1945), and its Italian counterpart, the Ministero per l’assistenza post-bellica (Ministry for Postwar Assistance, June 1945–February 1947).

Both these administrations, so far ignored by the historiography of the Welfare State, dealt with post-war assistance to all sorts of veterans, ex-deportees and “national” refugees resulting from wartime exoduses, massive civil destruction, and, in the Italian context, from the loss of its colonial empire and the redefinition of its borders. The social assistance measures directed at these groups – encompassing around 2.1 million prisoners, deportees and forced labourers, and 2.5 million civilians, above all refugees, in France (approximately 12% of the population); 4.7 million veterans and 3.3 million refugees and victims of the war in Italy (approximately 17% of the population) – marked the transition to a citizenship-based right and state-provided treatment. Poverty, destitution and displacement affected all social strata; the distinctions between the deserving and undeserving poor, and between workers and the economically marginalized, were increasingly blurred. The needs of these groups of war victims fell outside the existing welfare systems based on contributions and previous work activities.

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