Nous faisons l'hyothese que ce sont notamment les configurations institutionnelles particulieres des differents systemes de protection sociale qui permettent de comprendre non seulement les differences d'enjeux politiques de la crise de l'Etat-providence, mais encore les differences dans les...

The Spanish welfare state incorporates elements of both Bismarckian and Beveridgean traditions, and can be labelled as a via media with respect to other existing regimes of social protection. It also represents a middle way of decommodification and gendering, and of universal and means-tested...

In this paper, the authors look at trends in social security reform activity in all of the Nordic countries with the exception of Iceland. They shall first briefly compare the status of the welfare state around 1990 with that of 1997; to be followed by an account of the economic and political...

The paper examines the gender relations upsheld by the Italian welfare state, and points out that the reforms of cash transfer programs, which took place after 1992, reinforce the "male -breadwinner/female -housekeeper" model.