Abstract
This paper aims to analyze the main characteristics of Western European welfare states, as well as the main differences that exist between them. These arrangements are to be understood as one form among the possible forms of social protection systems and that is characterized by the fact that the state assumes a more forceful role in meeting individual fundamental needs compared to other forms of welfare provision, such as the market and the family. These arrangements differ according to the profile of public policies, in general, and of economic and social policies, in particular. This profile is determined by the process of interaction between groups with different preferences and different capabilities to impose these preferences on other groups in certain historical circumstances. The regimes analyzed show that more sophisticated arrangements are more feasible and resilient in societies with less heterogeneities, i.e., with smaller cleavages from the material and immaterial point of view. The paper concludes that the Western European countries whose public policies are characterized by a preventive social policy, as well as by a greater coordination of this policy with economic policy, which has a higher grade of autonomy to act according to each situation, are better prepared than others to assure the protection of human dignity in the face of challenges posed by contemporary capitalism.
Keywords:
Welfare states; Typologies; Western Europe; Social Protection Systems; Public Policies
