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CATHOLICISM, SOCIAL VALUES AND THE WELFARE SYSTEM IN SPAIN Víctor Pérez-Díaz, Elisa Chuliá, Joaquín P. López Novo and Berta Álvarez-Miranda ASP Research Paper 102(b)/2010 Summary 1. Introduction 2. The development of the Spanish welfare 3. The cultural background of the Spanish welfare system 4. The institutions of the Spanish welfare system 5. Conclusion: The central role of the Catholic Church and religion in the Spanish welfare system This paper will be published in 2011 as part of the project “Religion, values, and the welfare state, the significance of religious communities to the normative background of European welfare states”, directed by Prof. Dr. Hans-Richard Reuter and Prof. Dr. Karl Gabriel of the University of Münster (Germany). We thank Stefan Leibold for his comments and remarks. Víctor Pérez-Díaz, Elisa Chuliá, Joaquín P. López Novo, and Berta Álvarez-Miranda, ASP, Gabinete de Estudios ASP Research Papers Comité de Redacción /Editorial Board Víctor Pérez-Díaz (director) Berta Álvarez-Miranda Navarro Joaquín Pedro López Novo Josu Mezo Aranzibia Juan Carlos Rodríguez Pérez Fernando González Olivares (redactor jefe) Comité Científico Internacional /International Scientific Committee Daniel Bell (American Academy of Arts and Sciences) Suzanne Berger (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Peter Gourevitch (University of California, San Diego) Peter Hall (Harvard University) Pierre Hassner (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, París) Kenneth Keniston (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) © Víctor Pérez-Díaz, Elisa Chuliá, Joaquín P. López Novo and Berta Álvarez-Miranda This paper should not be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior permission of the authors Depósito legal: M-6126-1994 ISSN: 1134 - 6116 1. Introduction Spain entered the 21st century as a late but already consolidated parliamentary democracy with a service-oriented economy, a fairly rigid labor market including considerable groups of people affected by vulnerable employment, an ageing society and a mature welfare. In spite of the steep decline of fertility rates –which rank among the lowest in the world–, the fast rise of immigration since the mid 90s has boosted the Spanish population from 40 million to 47 million inhabitants. In the mid 70s of the past century, after the death of General Franco –who had ruled the country since the end of the Civil War (1936-39)– reformist elites belonging to both the authoritarian regime and its political opposition engaged in negotiations to steer a peaceful transition to democracy. This process established a bridge between the old and the new regime allowing for endogenous institutional change without breaking the principle of legality and the rule of law, and was facilitated by King Juan Carlos who had been appointed by Franco as his successor in the position of chief of state. The 1978 Constitution established a parliamentary monarchy and opened the door for a new territorial organization of the state (estado de las autonomías) which has taken the institutional shape of seventeen autonomous communities, each one with extensive legislative and executive powers (particularly in the realm of education, health care and social services). Strongly decentralized and poorly integrated, the Spanish territorial model has been defined by some observers as “asymmetric federalism” because not all autonomous communities enjoy the same rights vis à vis the central state. Furthermore the process of devolution is still open, partly in response to the conflicting demands of the nationalist parties. Only two national parties have been able to lead the central government: the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) and the Partido Popular (PP). The PP, though not being a Christian-democratic party, is nearer to the Catholic Church, especially regarding family and education issues. The proportional electoral system overrepresents large parties; small parties tend to be organized at the subnational level, either with a nationalist or regionalist orientation. Nonetheless, a highly concentrated vote grants them representation in the national bicameral parliament, and they often wield a fair amount of power as allies supporting the minority governments led by one of the two big national parties. Spain has been hard hit by the current financial and economic crisis, which once again has taken unemployment to the staggering rate of 20% of the active population (close to five million people), which doubles the average rate of the European Union. Rising unemployment and a severe GDP drop have strained the welfare state, specially the Social Security accounts, which have to face the dramatic increase of unemployment benefits and income transfers in the face of diminishing workers’ contributions and inputs from taxes. In this context, a rise in the share of social expenditure to GDP may be expected, presumably reducing the social expenditure gap between Spain and the EU (20.9% and 26.9% of GDP in 2006)1. 1 Statistics in Focus 40/2009 (Population and social conditions). 1 In such critical situations the role of the families as welfare providers becomes even more noticeable. In spite of the state’s growing weight in the welfare system during the last fifty years, Spanish families continue to play a crucial role as welfare-producing cells: sharing resources to buffer the impact of unemployment among their members, helping each other to muddle through, and providing care for their dependents. They thus constitute a pillar of social cohesion that both supplements the welfare state and compensates for its shortcomings. The purpose of this paper is to describe and explain the role played by Catholicism in the development of the Spanish welfare state, to ascertain if a religious tradition was “welfare state-productive”, or rather “welfare system productive”, and, in that case, to highlight the specific ways in which it contributed to both the genesis and the advance of such system. Our preliminary answer to this research question is that Spanish Catholicism has been –and still is– a welfare state productive religious tradition, and that its contribution to the making of the welfare system has been many-sided. We stress three contributions of the Catholic Church and Catholicism by and large. First, the Church has contributed to building a welfare institutional infra-structure (schools, hospitals, asylums, orphanages…) both before the rise of the welfare state and in parallel to its development; this infrastructure has been accommodated within the welfare system as a private branch of service provision. Second, Catholicism has played an important role as a cultural idiom during the nearly four decades-long Francoist regime, which was the period in which the Spanish welfare state effectively took-off. Nowadays, in a context of mounting secularization, religious pluralism and religious privatization, it is easy to underrate the influence that Catholicism exerted in Spain’s public life in the past century, particularly in the first half. However, after the Civil War, Catholicism became both the state religion and the ideological common denominator endorsed by all the political families (Phalangists, the military, conservative monarchist and different strands of Catholics) that participated in the politics of the elite’s “limited pluralism” (Linz 1970; Tusell 1988). Under the Francoist regime, Catholicism was so pervasive that all institutions and policies carried a catholic stamp, even if policy makers did not explicitly belong to a catholic faction. In addition, fiscal conservatism during Francoism kept social expenditure low and left ample room for the Catholic Church to expand welfare infrastructure, particularly –but not exclusively– in the educational sector. And third, throughout the development of the welfare state, the Church has also played a major role as both a provider of social assistance to the poor, and as a lobby on behalf of the very poor and insufficiently protected by the welfare state. Within the Spanish civil society, specific Church organizations stand out as advocates for social inclusion and vehicles for granting basic aid to marginalized groups. In the first part of this chapter we sketch the development of the Spanish welfare state, characterizing the main stages in its development and the role played by the Catholic Church in each phase. We then point to the historical course of the Church and its cultural influence on the social values underlying the welfare state. In the third part, we look at the institutional structure and the functioning of the welfare system pointing at current difficulties and challenges. Finally, we recapitulate our argument and develop some concluding arguments that may stimulate further research. 2 2. The development of the Spanish welfare state 2.1. Early steps in the emergence of a modern welfare state Initiatives to design welfare policies in Spain can be traced back to the end of the 19th century. In the context of political and economic crisis after the loss of the last Spanish colonies in America (1898), the “social question” gained public saliency. According to outstanding intellectuals of that time, the modernization of agriculture, the encouragement of industrialization and public works, and the development of a social protection system to cover risks of poor peasants and workers became the keys to Spain’s “regeneration” (Comín 1999; Costa 2009). The establishment in the early 1880s of the Commission for Social Reform, a nationwide network of committees in charge