L’Europa mediterranea fra diritti sociali e crisi economica. Il welfare state ai tempi dell’austerità. Un’introduzione

In this introduction to the Special Issue on the welfare states of the Southern European countries we first briefly review the literature about welfare regimes and, then, we inquire whether the peculiarities of the Mediterranean welfare regime have been challenged in the recent years by some structural changes and by the austerity measures that have been introduced in Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal in order to deal with the current economic recession. Moreover, also basing on the papers included in this special issue, we summarize the main contents of the reforms introduced in these four countries and discuss the implications of some crucial changes that have recently concerned the modalities of the policy making.