By the end of World War II

By the end of World War II, the nations of Western Europe all faced the burdens of the post-war economies. If not totally destroyed, a nation was in chaos and needed dramatic reconstruction. This is where democratic societies stepped in; recreation of sturdy government was crucial to the revival of Western European countries. Within just a few years after the defeat of Italy and Germany, the European hemisphere bounced back into a stronger, more efficient society than ever before. Some call this the Golden Age of the European economy. As human life became more and more complex and difficult to manage, the government had to accommodate to the citizens needs and wants. Because of the basic importance of the contemporary social structure, its management had a crucial importance in making the countries work. Europe was used to strict authority over its people and complexity in the way they handles a countries affairs was not accepted. Europe was a very special situation though, because it has a long record of traditional social control imposed over the individual by collective authorities, especially the state, and hierarchal religious institutions. Another problem that was going on in modern Western Europe (pg.21, Crozier) the military grew in size a great deal, West European armed forces grew from forty-two thousand to almost eighty thousand within five years after the Second World War. Especially in the country of France. With the militant group emerging larger than ever, the government was working!with more citizens first hand, by supporting the working military group. One of the main pieces to making a modern democracy work was inducing the people to want to partake in the government and have them strive to get involved with the mending of the societal crisis. All post war European countries had to live through the same costly situation of having to resto