1. Introduction
In recent years, most of the comparative studies concerned with the development of the
welfare state in Western Europe have dealt with the situation in liberal democracies.
The case of Spain has attracted very little attention from academics and experts in the
area of social policy and welfare development. Such a disinterest must be caused by
the fact that the Iberian country was under Franco's rule for a period of nearly 40 years.
This Working Paper aims to analyse succinctly the process of building a system of
provision of social welfare in contemporary Spain stressing general differences and
similarities with respect to other Western European countries. It also seeks to identify
the main features and future trends of the model of social welfare currently being
developed in Spain. This model, which is labelled a via media with respect to other
existing welfare systems, incorporates an emphasis on a gradual and progressive
decentralisation of social policy planning and implementation at regional and local
levels.
2. The Spanish background: Krausists and Social Catholics
The origins of the Spanish regime of welfare provision are rooted in the governmental
reforms put forward at the turn of the 19th century under the auspices of some middleclass
intellectuals, most of them social Catholics and "neo-liberal" krausistas (1
). These
two groups played a significant role in the subsequent creation of the Instituto Nacional
de Previsión Social in 1908, the pioneering institution of the future Spanish social
welfare system.
These early Spanish "neo-liberals" were largely influenced by the ideas of the German
philosopher C.G.F Krause, who advocated ideas of "harmonic rationalism". These were
based on a programme of promoting a mutually beneficial coexistence of the social and
economic classes which would constitute an alternative to traditional conservatism,
laissez-faire, Catholic corporatism, and revolutionary collectivism. The krausistas
agreed with Social Catholics on supporting social reforms and social intervention by the
state, although they disagreed on priorities and on issues pertaining to the religious
sphere.
Spanish "neo-liberals" believed that the main cause of poverty in Spain was its cultural
and economic backwardness. According to this view, Spain should improve its
economic structures, and in order to achieve such a goal, its human capital should be
educated and trained to compete with other countries in the international trade arena;
otherwise, misery and social chaos would take over Spanish society. For the krausistas
the main obstacle to Spanish modernization was the tight control exerted by the
Catholic Church over people's behaviour and expectations. Thus, education should be
secular and focussed mainly on technical knowledge. Accordingly, traditional charity