The Fascist welfare state : continuities, ruptures and mediations

In the vast literature on Fascism, its welfare state policies have not received thorough attention. Yet, the topic is crucial in the endless debate on Mussolini's regime's totalitarian character and in the evaluation of its contradictory elements of modernization. Was Fascism's modernity – to which historians usually appended restrictive adjectives such as authoritarian, conservative, corporative, unequal or selective – a quality that also describes its version of the welfare state? What were the factual innovations Fascism introduced? What was their effectiveness? Moreover, the depiction of the Fascist regime as the main actor that forged twentieth century Italian welfare state is still prevalent, even at the current public debate level. However, to a closer investigation, the regime's novelties were many fewer than one might think and aspects of continuity with the Liberal governments occurred. If Fascist social policies often ended up in perpetuating the solutions shaped in the Libe...