South Europe: reclaiming welfare post-crisis?

This chapter examines whether the austerity-induced reforms in South Europe, over much of the 2010s, have reconfigured the scope and scale of the public welfare systems, undermined political trust and nurtured populism. The analysis highlights cross-country trends in modernizing/rationalizing the main pillars of the welfare state prior to the Great Recession. It traces convergence in the thrust of retrenchment and flexibilization under prolonged austerity and external conditionality in the wake of the financial and debt crisis and assesses how far in the last few years recovery has spurred some reform reversals. Further, it unpicks the significance of the surge/revival of left and/or right-leaning populist movements and ideas in the last decade and the cross-country varying electoral success of a populist social agenda. Against this backdrop some preliminary considerations are raised as to how South European societies are navigating the covid-19 storm.