ABSTRACT
When we think about ‘crisis’ and ‘welfare state’ the first word that comes to mind is: retrenchment. Since the end of the Trente Glorieuses, when social policy scholars postulated the crisis of the Keynesian model of social protection (O’Connor, 1973; Gough 1979; Offe, 1982), most observers approached this phenomenon by referring to an alleged retrenchment process of the post-war welfare state. The ‘receding tide’, if not ‘exhaustion’, of the Fordist typology of social protection was mainly explained by alluding to the alleged paradox of capitalism, which ‘cannot co-exist with the welfare state, neither can it exist without the welfare state’ (Offe, 1982, p. 72). Margaret Thatcher’s memorable announcement, back in 1980, that people should ‘accept there’s no real alternative’ 1 to the economic strategy her administration designed to face the recession soon turned into one of the most characteristic (and infamous) mottos of neoliberalism.
