Warfare, Welfare, and Transformation of European Society in the 20th Century

The workshop aims to study the transformative impact of 20th century wars on European societies. The first research avenue emphasises a perspective “from below”, by focusing on the relations between society and State policy. A second strand aims to deconstruct the traditional view centred on the Nation-State, by analysing the phenomena of mobilisation, demobilisation and transformation according to infra-state (at micro and meso levels) as well as supra-state scales. The workshop shifts focus on social actors and “sectional interests” (e.g. unions, employers’ organisations, voluntary sector), and aims to discuss the impact of the war from a transnational and entangled point of view. As it calls into question the natural primacy of the scale of analysis of the nation-state, it questions the caesura between wartimes and post-war times to consider the processes of war exit (sortie de guerre) and those of social translation beyond the end of the fighting.