The South European Welfare Model: the Greek Welfare State,in Search of an Identity

Abstract

The aim of this article is not to describe in detail the social protection system in Greece or in the other southern European countries. Its mam ambition is to offer a general overview of its formation and an explanation for its parti cularities. The basic thesis is that essentially the Greek Welfare State belongs to the conti nental model. Its consolidation is very recent, because the post-civil war 'dual society' (1946-74) did not allow the formation of a viable social consensus, a necessary prerequi site for the welfare state. There are, conse quently, important distortions in the develop ment of the social security system. Although many of these institutional particularities are common in the Mediterranean South, they are not qualitatively sufficient so as to create a new institutional paradigm or a 'South-European' Welfare model. In the first section an attempt is made to clarify the problem of the existence of a 'Latin-rim' welfare model and the classifi cation of the Greek social protection system within it, in order subsequently to examine its specific characteristics in relation to the turbu lent history of this country. The conclusion of the author is that although there is a clear trend in the direction of convergence of the Greek welfare system with the median Euro pean standards, Greece still has a considerable lag to overcome.