Welfare State – explanations for its genesis and development

Abstract

This paper seeks a conceptual approach on the system of social protection built in the last decades of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century which gradually assigned to the State the role of intervening and regulating the Welfare State. Though taking into account that cultural, historical, political and economic differences imprint distinct patterns on the mechanisms of social attention in each particular country, common aspects can be identified which can help structure explanations for the role and the dynamics of the dominant pattern of Welfare protection found in developed countries. This text also has the purpose of explaining how the power of political mobilisation contributed to the formation of the Welfare State through the theoretical reference of Esping-Andersen which emphasises the participation of political and institutional mechanisms of representation in the setting up of consensual ways of undertaking welfare, employment and development.