Assistance and Vulnerability in Interwar Europe: An Overview

The evolution of social welfare in Europe is usually regarded as a linear process of creation of more integrated and comprehensive public systems. However, the European welfare states resulted from power relations, patterns of inclusion and exclusion, self-help action. This introduction illustrates the approach adopted in this book, which investigates the interrelation between socially margin-alised people and those charged with their assistance during the in-terwar period: the state, local authorities, and myriad voluntary ac-tors. By emphasising these interactions on a local, national, and transnational level, the book challenges simplistic distinctions be-tween public and private initiatives, stressing instead that a mixed system supplied care for the social marginals. The case-studies deal with various geographical areas and social contexts, allowing for the exploration of social marginality through the prisms of the gender and age divide, and national and religious factors. The three main thematic areas related to the wars, institu-tional segregation, and the action for young women and poor mothers convey the mixed character of the aid to the marginals, the private involvement in state- and nation-building projects, and the implications in terms of social disciplining.