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Is the Crisis a Watershed Moment for the Greek Welfare State? The Chances for Modernization amidst an Ambivalent EU Record on ‘Social Europe’

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The Greek Crisis and European Modernity

Part of the book series: Identities and Modernities in Europe ((IME))

Abstract

‘Modernization’ is a slippery term. It may take different meanings in different historical conjunctures and is easily malleable in ideological-political terms. In the 1950s and 1960s the modernization school in development studies equated modernization with Westernization, namely with an evolutionary process in diverse indigenous (traditional) societies (constituting what is called the Third World) towards developing the social, economic, political, and cultural values, structures, and institutions characterizing western capitalism (Bernstein 1971). Since then debate on modernization has undergone various turns, and a raft of different meanings and approaches has emerged in the social sciences field as well as in lay debate.

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Authors
  1. Maria Petmesidou
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. European University Institute, Italy

    Anna Triandafyllidou , Ruby Gropas  & Hara Kouki ,  & 

  2. Democritus University of Thrace, Greece

    Ruby Gropas

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© 2013 Maria Petmesidou

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Petmesidou, M. (2013). Is the Crisis a Watershed Moment for the Greek Welfare State? The Chances for Modernization amidst an Ambivalent EU Record on ‘Social Europe’. In: Triandafyllidou, A., Gropas, R., Kouki, H. (eds) The Greek Crisis and European Modernity. Identities and Modernities in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137276254_9

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