Features of The Welfare State in Countries of The Romano-Germanic Legal System

Аннотация

This article investigates the historical, theoretical, and methodological foundations of the welfare state in key countries of the Romano-Germanic (civil law) legal tradition, with a focus on Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. The main purpose is to identify common and distinctive features of welfare state formation in these countries and to understand the role of legal symbolism and doctrinal principles in shaping the social state in these jurisdictions. The analysis employs a comparative legal-historical methodology, addressing symbolic representations of law in the construction of the welfare state and highlighting methodological challenges in legal theory. The study is situated within the field of theory and history of state and law, and it draws on the history of legal doctrines to clarify the legal and theoretical approaches that underpin welfare state development in civil law traditions. The article contributes to a deeper understanding of how civil law doctrines and symbolic legal principles have guided the evolution of modern welfare states. Keywords: Welfare state; romano-germanic legal system; civil law tradition; sozialstaat; solidarité; social rights; legal symbolism; comparative constitutional law; legal history; methodology. welfare and reduce social inequalities. Introduction: The welfare state is broadly understood as a model of governance in which the state assumes The Romano-Germanic legal system, characterized by responsibility for protecting the social and economic codified laws and rooted in Roman and Germanic well-being of its citizens through interventions in the traditions, provides a fertile context for the economy, provision of social services, and guarantees development of the welfare state. Civil law jurisdictions of social rights. In countries of the Romano-Germanic typically allow legislatures to enact comprehensive legal family – i.e. the civil law tradition of continental social legislation, and many have entrenched social Europe – the idea of the welfare state has been principles at the constitutional level. This is in contrast formally embedded in constitutional texts and legal to the common law tradition (exemplified by countries doctrine since the mid-20th century. Indeed, in the like the United States or United Kingdom) where, decades following World War II, most continental historically, constitutional recognition of socio- European nations refounded their constitutional orders economic rights has been minimal or absent. Notably, as social states, pledging state commitment to social the vast majority of national constitutions worldwide justice, equality, and the material conditions of now include social rights or references to the social freedom. For example, the 1949 German Basic Law state, whereas the U.S. Constitution contains no such declares Germany to be a “democratic and social guarantees. The civil law world thus offers rich federal state,” the French Constitution of 1958 examples of how the welfare state can be given legal proclaims France a “social Republic,” and Spain’s 1978 form and protection. At the same time, the civil law Constitution establishes a “social and democratic State, method – with its emphasis on legal codes, general subject to the rule of law.” These notions signal a principles, and scholarly “dogmatics” – poses unique dramatic shift from the 19th-century liberal laissez- questions for interpreting broad social concepts within faire state toward a modern paradigm in which state a legal framework. As one comparativist observes, power is expected to be used to advance general differences between common law and civil law are International Journal of Law And Criminology 89 https://theusajournals.com/index.php/ijlc International Journal of Law And Criminology (ISSN: 2771-2214) largely methodological rather than substantive in incorporating the 1946 Preamble, and Article 1 of the matters of public law; Western democracies, regardless 1958 Constitution pointedly declares: “France shall be of legal family, converged in adopting welfare an indivisible, secular, democratic, and social commitments after the Second World War. Still, the Republic.” The inclusion of the word “social” in the very distinctive legal traditions and histories of countries like definition of the Republic signals that France embraces Germany, France, Italy, and Spain have shaped the not only the values of liberty and equality from its particular features and doctrines of their welfare revolutionary heritage but also the value of fraternity states. or solidarity as a fundamental constitutional principle. However, there was a significant gap between In Spain, after the end of Franco’s dictatorship, the recognition and enforceability. Weimar Germany 1978 Constitution similarly established the nation as a vividly demonstrated the difficulty of translating social “social and democratic state governed by the rule of constitutional principles into judicially enforceable law” (Estado so