Managing the transition from war to peace: post-war citizenship-based welfare in Italy and France, 1944–1947

This chapter aims to investigates 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? It 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. The chapter examines Italian and French governmental structures devised to manage the transition from war to peace during the “post-war moment”: the Commissariat, and later the Ministere des Prisonniers, deportes et refugies. It argues that the impact of war emergencies, far from being only a temporary economic burden for welfare systems, affected the process of construction of social rights and notably altered the meaning, the targets and the aims of social assistance.