Skip to main content

The Allure of the Welfare State

  • Chapter
In the Society of Fascists

Part of the book series: Italian and Italian American Studies ((IIAS))

  • 344 Accesses

Abstract

Under Fascism, politics assumed a predominant role in the structuring and administration of the welfare state. Beginning in the second half of the 1920s, and above all throughout the 1930s, the regime’s propaganda needs and its search for popular consent were the primary factors that shaped the measures adopted in the fields of social assistance and welfare. The political use made by the regime of its social legislation and welfare provisions, through an intensive propaganda campaign, was in fact designed to reinforce its own power structure and hegemony, particularly among certain strategic sectors of society.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. See Maria Sophia Quine, Population Politics in Twentieth Century Europe: Fascist Dictatorships and Liberal Democracies (New York: Routledge, 1996).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  2. See Mariuccia Salvati, “Lo Stato sociale in Italia: Caratteri originali e motivi di una crisi,” Passato e presente 32 (1994): 25.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Franco Bonelli, “L’evoluzione del sistema previdenziale italiano in una visione di lungo periodo,” in Novant’anni di previdenza in Italia: Culture, politiche, strutture, ed. Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale (INPS), supplement to Previdenza sociale 1 (1989): 140. The papers were initially presented at a conference in Rome on November 9–10, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Maurizio Ferrera, Il welfare state in Italia: Sviluppo e crisi in prospettiva comparata (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1984), 36. Analogous observations can be found in Ugo Ascoli, “Il sistema italiano di welfare,” and

    Google Scholar 

  5. Massimo Paci, “Il sistema di welfare italiano tra tradizione clientelare e prospettive di riforma,” both in Welfare state all’italiana, ed. Ascoli (Rome: Laterza, 1984).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Maurizio Ferrera, Modelli di solidarietà: Politiche e riforme sociali nelle democrazie (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1993), 201. For a study of social policy encompassing both the Liberal and the Fascist period, see also

    Google Scholar 

  7. Quine, Italy’s Social Revolution: Charity and Welfare from Liberalism to Fascism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  8. Salvati, Cittadini e governanti: La leadership nella storia dell’Italia contemporanea (Rome: Laterza, 1997), 107.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Paul Corner, “Fascismo e controllo sociale,” Italia contemporanea 228 (September 2002): 396.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Istituto Nazionale Fascista di Previdenza Sociale (INFPS), Al di là del lavoro e al di là del salario (Rome: 1942), 10.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Ibid., 399. As the author explains, the judgment of these “visitors” was critical for women to have access to the clinics of the Opera Nazionale Maternità e Infanzia (National Agency for Motherhood and Infancy, or ONMI). Regarding ONMI, see Chiara Saraceno, “Costruzione della maternità e della paternità,” in Il regime fascista, ed. Angelo Del Boca, Massimo Legnani, and Mario G. Rossi (Rome: Laterza, 1995); and Michela Minesso, ed., Stato e infanzia nell’Italia contemporanea (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Silvia Inaudi, A tutti indistintamente: L’Ente Opera Assistenziali nel periodo fascista (Bologna: Clueb, 2008), 14.

    Google Scholar 

  13. See Inaudi, A tutti indistintamente, as well as David G. Horn, “L’Ente opera assistenziali: Strategie politiche di assistenza,” in Il fascismo in Lombardia: Politica, economia e società, ed. Maria Luisa Betri et al. (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1989).

    Google Scholar 

  14. Victoria De Grazia, The Culture of Consent: Mass Organization of Leisure in Fascist Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 4.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  15. Lorenzo Gaeta, “L’Italia e lo Stato sociale: Dall’Unità alla seconda guerra mondiale,” in Gerhard A. Ritter, Storia dello Stato sociale (Rome: Laterza, 1996), 238–40.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Arnaldo Cherubini, Storia della previdenza sociale (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1977); and

    Google Scholar 

  17. Cherubini and Italo Piva, Dalla libertà all’obbligo: La previdenza sociale fra Giolitti e Mussolini (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1998). The phase of expansion followed an earlier, more restricted one in which the agricultural sector had been excluded from unemployment insurance, in which sharecroppers and small proprietors had been barred from collecting pensions and workplace injury compensation, and in which an even earlier move toward standardized payments had been reversed.

    Google Scholar 

  18. See Francesco Mazzini, “Il sistema previdenziale in Italia tra riforma e conservazione: Gli anni della Costituente,” in Amministrazione pubblica e istituzioni finanziarie fra Assemblea Costituente e politica della ricostruzione, ed. Andrea Orsi Battaglini (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1980), 522.

    Google Scholar 

  19. The words are those of Domenico Preti, “Istituto nazionale fascista per la previdenza sociale (INFPS),” in Dizionario del fascismo, ed. Victoria De Grazia and Sergio Luzzatto (Turin: Einaudi, 2002), 1: 695.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Fabio Bertini, “Il fascismo dalle assicurazioni per i lavoratori allo Stato sociale,” in Lo Stato fascista, ed. Marco Palla (Milan: La Nuova Italia, 2001), 211.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Melis, “Introduzione: Le trasformazioni del reticolo amministrativo del Novecento dalle province alle ‘reti’,” in Territorialità e delocalizzazione nel governo locale, ed. Marco Cammelli (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007), 139 and 141.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Claudio Pavone, “Il regime fascista,” in I grandi problemi dal Medioevo all’Età contemporanea, ed. Nicola Tranfaglia and Massimo Firpo, L’età contemporanea: Dal primo al secondo dopoguerra (Milan: Garzanti, 1993), 9: 213.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Melis, Storia dell’amministrazione italiana, 1861–1993 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1996), 365.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Giulia Albanese Roberta Pergher

Copyright information

© 2012 Giulia Albanese and Roberta Pergher

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Giorgi, C. (2012). The Allure of the Welfare State. In: Albanese, G., Pergher, R. (eds) In the Society of Fascists. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230392939_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230392939_7

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-35213-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-39293-9

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics