The Modern European Complex, Welfare and Citizenship

Introduction

So far we have considered the modern European social complex as an historically developed configuration of commonalities and differences among European societies which was importantly driven, both in the early modern period and later, by the dynamics of warfare and the building of nation-states as warfare states. In this chapter we take the exploration of the complex further in terms of the centrally important, but polar opposite, theme of welfare rather than ill-fare, and the way in which it has come to be socially constructed and organised in modern European nation-states. Welfare and social policy are central features not only of the organisation, but also of the meaning, of nation-states and their ...