Europa, Stato sociale e rinnovamento del paradigma riformatore: la tormentata ricerca del PCI degli anni Ottanta

Abstract

the relationship between the goal of reforming the welfare state (and the social
compromise underlying it) in the elaboration of the PCI, as well as the objective
of rebooting the process of integration between the countries of the Old Continent,
capable of leading to a more solid “political Europe”. Far from being two
distinct and separate elements (perhaps true during previous historical eras, though
never clearly), in the 1980s these two issues became increasingly intertwined,
as public opinion and political debate identified in the European dimension the
place and space within which redefine the main features of the social model and
rethink a different and more dynamic balance between state, market and organised
social subjects.
Favouring the analysis of the party’s political culture, the article attempts to conduct
this reconstruction by carrying out a periodization in order to distinguish
three different phases of this relationship, within which the relations and the type
of intertwining between the two elements are defined, as part of the more general
strategic perspective and overall identity and political project of the party.