What is Social Policy?

“Social policy”, also known as social security, encompasses all government actions aimed at protecting vulnerable members of society, reducing social inequality, and strengthening people’s ability to act independently and support themselves. It is both a broad term for political strategies designed to address social issues and an academic field focused on studying these matters.

Although the term “welfare state” is sometimes used interchangeably with social policy, it more specifically describes a situation in which a country’s social policies are effective enough to ensure that no citizen lives in absolute poverty.

Key areas of social policy include education, healthcare, housing, childcare, unemployment benefits, pensions, food assistance, and similar forms of support. These policies may involve direct financial aid or the provision of free goods and services.

Some social policies are targeted at specific groups in greatest need, such as low-income individuals and households or vulnerable populations, including people with disabilities, children, older adults, and pregnant women. Other social policies are universal, meaning they are available to all citizens regardless of income or social status.

                            History of Social Policy

In its modern form, social policy and public welfare institutions developed during the nineteenth century as a response to economic liberalism and the harmful consequences of industrialization and urban growth, with Great Britain and Switzerland leading the way. The welfare state reached its peak after World War II, when the victorious nations concluded that the rise of fascism and its associated atrocities had largely resulted from the economic hardship and social instability that followed World War I and the Great Depression.

These principles are reflected in Article 55 of the United Nations Charter and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948.

During the second half of the twentieth century, wealthy countries developed different welfare models that varied in terms of population coverage, the balance between government regulation and self-management, the roles of public, semi-public, nonprofit, and private institutions, and the methods of financing welfare systems—whether through general taxation, mandatory contributions, or subsidized market-based arrangements.

In the twenty-first century, countries have responded in different ways to challenges such as unemployment, reduced public spending, globalization, and demographic changes. As a result, the emphasis has gradually shifted from welfare being provided mainly by the state to a more mixed approach involving public institutions, nonprofit organizations, and market-based services, a model often referred to as “welfare pluralism.”

                          Research on Social Policy

One of the first studies of social policy was conducted by Beatrice and Sydney Webb, who participated in the work of the Commission that researched the scope and success of “Poor Laws” in Britain. They concluded that these laws are inadequate and should be repealed, and the results of this research were presented in the books The Break-Up of the Poor Law (1909), English Poor-Law Policy (1910), and The Abolition of the Poor Law (1918). They advocated the introduction of a minimum wage and the creation of a comprehensive system of free health insurance.

The consequences of the Great Depression of 1929–1932 prompted economist John Maynard Keynes to publish The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). Keynes, in this book, introduced a new branch of economics – macroeconomics – as he subverted the classical economics assumption that a competitive market economy is self-equilibrating, and that it always produces full employment. Keynes introduced the concept of “underemployment equilibrium” that required monetary manipulation by the central bank and extensive ‘socialization’ of investment to maintain full employment. Keynes argued that government intervention was necessary in times of economic crisis to stimulate demand and prevent economic collapse. He believed that in a recession, individuals and businesses would cut back on spending, leading to a decrease in demand and a further decrease in economic activity. To combat this, Keynes advocated for government spending on public works, social programs, and other initiatives to boost demand and stimulate the economy. One of the key concepts of Keynesian economics is the idea of the multiplier effect. This refers to the idea that an increase in government spending or investment leads to a larger increase in overall economic activity as money is repeatedly spent and re-spent in the economy. This, in turn, leads to an increase in employment and income, which further stimulates demand and contributes to economic growth.

Alva and Gunnar Myrdal, in their book Crisis in the Population Question (1934), present a political and economic strategy for creating a social policy aimed at improving the position of families, and also the position of women, which would lead to resolving problems of poverty and declining birth rates in Sweden. They believe that social policy must play an active role in the development and progress of families, individuals, and the whole society, and not only be limited to solving acute problems.

William Beveridge’s study Social Insurance and Allied Services (1942), also known as the Beveridge Report, laid the foundation for the post–World War II welfare state in Britain. The report proposed a comprehensive system of social reform, including a National Health Service, expanded social insurance, family allowances, and policies aimed at achieving full employment. Its central goal was to guarantee a minimum standard of living below which no one should fall. Beveridge argued that social insurance should be part of a broader strategy for social progress. He identified five major social problems—“Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness”—that needed to be addressed. To combat poverty (“Want”), he proposed expanding and strengthening social insurance, introducing child benefits, and combining universal, contributory, and means-tested support, with a basic safety net for those without income. These programs would be funded through a national insurance system supported by employers and workers. The other “giants” were addressed through key reforms: universal healthcare to fight disease, state-funded education to reduce ignorance, large-scale public housing to eliminate poor living conditions, and full-employment policies to prevent mass unemployment. Overall, Beveridge envisioned a welfare state that would support citizens “from the cradle to the grave” without fostering dependency. He believed that by reducing poverty, improving health, and increasing education and employment, the long-term cost of welfare would actually decline as fewer people would need assistance.

In the book The Great Transformation (1944), Karl Polanyi criticized the idea of the self-regulating economy of the free market because he considered it to be economically unsustainable and that it would destroy the social order. The market economy promotes extreme individualism that destroys social cohesion, which is necessary for normal social cooperation. Polanyi developed a substantivism, a theory of economics in which the economy is viewed as in a state of "embeddedness", that is, the view that the economy is interconnected and constrained by wider social relations. In pre-industrial societies, the economy was organized through socially regulated relations of reciprocity and redistribution. He believes that two parallel processes are taking place in modern capitalism. On the one hand, market logic is spreading to all areas of social life, while on the other hand, social protection mechanisms are being developed to protect society from the most harmful consequences of the self-regulatory market system. Free-market capitalism seeks to destroy relations of reciprocity and redistribution, but social protection mechanisms, such as those that emerged in England in the early 19th century, act as a resistance to that intention. Although Polanyi was inspired by Marxist theory and ideology, he believed that social protection measures would prevent the whole society from being divided into two clearly separated and opposing classes, as Marxist theory assumed.

Thomas H. Marshall is best known for his conception of citizenship, which he presented in his book Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays (1950). In this book, he gave an ideal-type classification of three forms of citizenship: civil citizenship, political citizenship, and social citizenship. Civil citizenship enables all citizens to have a single legal position; political citizenship is related to giving political rights to all adult citizens - the right to participate in elections, vote, and be elected to political office; social citizenship refers to the existence of socio-economic measures by which the state guarantees the satisfaction of basic socio-economic needs of all citizens. Social citizenship, which Marshall was most concerned with, is linked to the emergence of the welfare state and the "safety net" it creates. He theoretically connected social citizenship and the class nature of modern industrial society.

Richard Titmuss’ research on social policy, which was conducted in Britain during World War II, when a large part of the population had to move out of their homes due to the German bombing of cities, resulted in the book Problems of Social Policy (1950). The results of that research proved that many existential problems of the population can be solved when the state implements adequate redistribution of resources. Titmuss and Brian Abel-Smith jointly conducted a study of the cost of public health insurance in the UK (National Health Service, NHS), and in the book, The Cost of the National Health Insurance (1956) published the results of this research, which showed that the amount of budget expenditures of the state for health, since the introduction of this form of insurance, has remained the same.

In his book Essays on the Welfare State (1958), Titmuss collected ten essays he wrote between 1951 and 1958. In this book, he re-examines the limited view of social policy that was then accepted. He believes that it is necessary to expand such a limited definition of social policy, because only a broader view of social policy can make it possible to determine which needs, in which way, and which part of the population social policy should meet. To distinguish between two views of social policy, Titmuss introduces two ideal types of welfare states - "residual" and "institutional". The concept of a residual welfare state assumes that the state should only get involved when both the family and the market fail. The institutional type of welfare state implies wider action of the state, when it takes over all allocative and distributive decisions. This typology of welfare states was the basis for further comparative research on the social policies of different states. In his book Social Policy (1974), Titmus extends this typology to the following types of the welfare state: the "institutional redistributive model", the "industrial achievement-performance model," and the "residual model". In each of these three ideal types of social policy, the state, the family, and the market stand in different relationships and take on different roles.

Harold Wilensky significantly contributed to the sociological study of the welfare state. In The Welfare State and Equality (1975), he argues that the welfare state is an integral part of the "logic of industrialism" because complex societies require modern social benefit systems to ensure a healthy and educated workforce. He divides the various welfare states according to the level of "generosity", that is, the total budget expenditures of the state for the social security system. In his book Rich Democracies (2002), Wilensky presents the results of his extensive comparative research on different welfare states. He found a strong statistical link between governments to the left of the center and the high level of social benefits budgets, as these governments spent more on these expenditures than right-wing or free-market governments. His results indicate that in explaining the level of expenditure on social benefits, a simple division into left and right parties is not appropriate, as right-wing parties, such as the Christian Democratic parties (widespread in Western Europe), which, when they were in power, allotted more budgetary funds for social benefits than free-market parties, but still less than left-leaning parties. Since on a simple left-right scale, free-market parties are more to the left than Christian-Democratic parties, this scale is not good for explaining differences in budgetary expenditures.

In Regulating the Poor (1971), Piven and Cloward conclude that social policy reforms, both during the  New Deal of the 1930s and those of the 1960s, were not primarily aimed at helping the poor so that they can get out of poverty, but to control them. These social measures and programs were introduced to calm the social dissatisfaction of the poor population during the period of economic and social crisis, and mostly ceased after the end of the crisis. They argue that social programs do not serve to limit capitalist institutions but to strengthen and maintain them.

In his book Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (1990), Gøsta Esping-Andersen introduces a typology of social security systems. In this well-known study, he divides welfare states into three basic types: social democratic, liberal, and conservative. The typology was developed based on a study of data from eighteen European countries and the United States. The theoretical basis of the typology is the view that social protection can be achieved within three different spheres: the state social protection system; the market; or within the family. Using that logic, states are divided according to which sphere is dominant.

Empirical data from different countries were used as a basis for determining the de-commodification of different types of social services in different countries. The author was less interested in the percentage that is allocated from the budget for social policy, but focused on the data that show exactly what the money is spent on. Based on the data analysis, Esping-Andersen introduces a division into three types of social protection systems: conservative, which focuses mostly on the family, liberal, which favors the market, and social democratic, where the state has the largest role in providing social services. The conservative type includes France, Germany, and Italy; the social democratic system exists in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands; and the liberal system in Canada, Japan, and the United States. Esping-Anderson's typology had many supporters, as well as many opponents, and served as a basis for much further empirical and theoretical research. The author himself changed the scheme in the book Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies (1999) but kept the triple typology, and only changed the names of the systems, so they are now called: residual, corporatist, and universal.

In the early 1990s, Theda Skocpol shifted the focus of her study to social policy and somewhat abandoned her earlier position on the great autonomous power of the state. In recent works, Skocpol recognizes the influence social movements and citizen associations can have on shaping the democratic process and social policy. In addition, classes can have a big impact, which is evident in the difference between social policy in the United States and Europe. The welfare state is much more developed in Europe because in the United States, the capitalist class has enormous power, while the working class is divided by ethnic and racial differences.

To better explain economic development, economist Amartya Sen, in his book Commodities and Capabilities (1985), introduces two new theoretical concepts – “capabilities” and “functionings”. Capabilities represent the range of choices and substantive freedoms that are available to someone, while functionings are actual things that someone wants to do or be. In that sense, poverty is really a deprivation of capabilities. Capabilities and functionings determine individual welfare, while only capabilities influence the welfare of the whole society. Sen saw expanding literacy as one of the most important ways of expanding individual and collective capabilities. Sen’s approach to development influenced the creation of the United Nations' Human Development Report. Sen also tied development to gender issues, as poverty and deprivation affect women more adversely. Lack of access to nutrition and healthcare is more pronounced in women, leading to disparity in underdeveloped countries where there are statistically fewer women than men, while in developed countries, the situation is reversed. For that reason, Sen advised that efforts to alleviate poverty and deprivation should focus on women – improving nutrition, finding work outside the household, improving literacy, and the like. In the book Poverty and Famines (1981),  Sen explores the causes of famines and concludes that famines don't happen in democracies and that the distribution of food across the country is more important than the shortage in food supply. Democratic governments have to react to cases of famine and redistribute food in order to stay in power.

In Contradictions of the Welfare State (1984), Claus Offe studied what he calls the "crisis of crisis management" in social security systems in capitalist countries. He believes that the modern state is no longer able to fully solve the socio-economic problems and conflicts of late capitalism. Offe argues that the welfare state is intrinsically unstable. It creates inherent contradictions because it attempts to reconcile the destructive social side-effects of capitalism with the democratic demand for equality and social security.

In American Government: Institutions and Policies (1980), James Q. Wilson developed a framework for understanding different types of social policies based on how their costs and benefits are distributed. He asked two key questions: Are the benefits concentrated on a small group or spread broadly across society? And are the costs concentrated or widely shared? When both benefits and costs are broadly distributed—for example, national defense funded by general taxation—people have roughly equal incentives to pay attention to and support the policy. Wilson described this as majoritarian politics, in which elected officials are especially responsive to the preferences of the majority. In contrast, when benefits are concentrated on a small group (such as welfare recipients) while costs are spread across many taxpayers, those who bear the costs have little motivation to organize or oppose the policy. Meanwhile, those who benefit have strong incentives to advocate for it. Wilson called this client politics, where politicians provide targeted benefits to specific groups, and the broader public remains largely disengaged. A third category, entrepreneurial politics, arises when costs are concentrated on a relatively small segment of society, but the benefits are widely distributed—for instance, in public education. Because many people gain from the policy while only a few bear the costs, there are strong political rewards for supporting such programs. This dynamic can encourage continued expansion. Wilson argued that since many policies fall into either the client or entrepreneurial categories, government tends to grow over time—sometimes becoming inefficient and providing more services than citizens actually demand.

In the books Beyond Left and Right (1994), The Third Way (1998), The Third Way and its Critics (2000), Anthony Giddens elaborated on a political project of reconstruction of society and social democratic politics. He believes that social democratic politics, as it was applied in Europe after the Second World War, is outdated and needs to be reformulated. He criticizes the welfare state because it is too bureaucratic and inflexible and because it has failed to solve wider moral, social, and cultural problems. Technological change, economic globalization, environmental problems, multiculturalism, and the rights of minority groups are completely new challenges to which new political answers must be found. Economic policy needs to shift from a comprehensive welfare state to creating a partnership between the state and civil society that will provide the best support for the economic and social empowerment of poor and excluded groups. In the field of politics, it is necessary to decentralize the state and develop a dialogical and deliberative democracy, which will reduce the paternalism of the state, develop cultural cosmopolitanism and overcome class-based political action. It is necessary to develop active political engagement of all citizens to, in addition to economic ones, solve environmental problems, equalize gender relations, improve the position of sexual minorities, and reduce ethnic conflicts in a multicultural society.

               Influence of Globalization on Social Policy

Zygmunt Bauman, in the book Globalization: The Human Consequences (1998), argues that Economic globalization leads to increased independence of capital, which, freed from central control, becomes autonomous, but also increasingly chaotic, which leads to the creation of a "new world chaos" (as a counterpart to the "new world order"). While the idea of ​​"universalization" was present earlier, that is, the idea of ​​creating a universal global order, this idea has been completely abandoned in recent times. States are increasingly losing the ability to regulate their economic processes and achieve "dynamic equilibrium" through customs, monetary, or fiscal policy. As national governments must obey the forces of extraterritorial global capital, countries lose not only economic but also political sovereignty. Global capital requires states to pursue a policy of balanced budget and to abolish all forms of intervention in the economy and markets, implement deregulation and liberalization, reduce or abolish taxes for companies and banks, curtail labor protection laws, allow complete freedom of movement of capital, and minimize social benefits. The strength of individual states should be minimal, just enough to guarantee the physical and legal security of global investments in their territory.

In the book Counterfire: Against the Tyranny of the Market  (1998b), Pierre Bourdieu shows that globalization entails, at the same time, the expansion of international financial capital, but also has a normative function, because it spreads the ideology of global capitalism as an inevitable reality that all states, organizations, and actors have to adapt to. This ideology is a carefully crafted myth that serves to dismantle the welfare state in Western Europe. The new doxa orders individual states to abolish social protection measures to achieve flexibility in work forces them to reduce budget expenditures and increase global competitiveness.

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