Social Policy Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Social policies can be defined as public interventions affecting the distribution of vital opportunities for citizens and their general well-being. Such a generic definition should acknowledge other public policies, not “social” in sensustrictu, which also aim at the improvement of people’s living conditions and the advancement of social citizenship rights. Thus, social policies interact with education policies to provide a higher level of formal instruction to citizens, as well as with those policies concerning health promotion, access to housing, or subsidies for income maintenance purposes. In general, public polices concern either the individual (distributive and regulatory) or the society as a whole (constituent and redistributive). Social policies are mainly redistributive as they imply transfers and a balancing of resources and capacities among citizens.

Economic policies dealing with labor market participation are of particular relevance for the covering of citizens’ social risks (e.g., disability, old age, personal care, sickness, or unemployment). In a broad sense, the term social policy is associated with the development of the welfare state. The latter can be defined as an aggregate of public institutions that provide social policies with the aim of achieving a better quality of life for citizens and to facilitate equal opportunities among them. Social scientists and policy makers would generally agree that a main tenet of social policy development concerns redistribution. However, redistribution, in some cases, produces unintended effects as well-off individuals often profit from their advantageous position according to what is known as the Matthew Principle: “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath” (Mat. 13:12).

Levels Of Provision And Welfare Mix

Social policies operate on two main levels: (1) those services and benefits for employees (and their family dependents) who make contributions to the social insurance system during their working life or who are entitled to as taxpayers and (2) those noncontributory services and benefits provided by the public administration as social welfare or assistance to those citizens lacking sufficient material resources. However, there is overlap between both levels; in some countries, the social insurance system takes up social welfare responsibilities (e.g., income support for the frail elderly who are not entitled to contributory services or provision of social services to the poor).

Public social policies and social work, in both contributory and social assistance realms, count on the crucial role played by the families and the paramount role played by women’s unpaid domestic work. Corporate welfare and voluntary associations also deliver, in some instances, full services and benefits that the public sector does not take on board by their own initiative or by means of contracting-out arrangements. This panoply of services, along with those available in the market, has led in some countries to the emergence of a “welfare mix,” in which such interrelationship between the public and the private (both for-profit and nonprofit) is meant to be optimized.

Third-sector organizations, in particular, have been recognized as key partners of public authorities and professional groups in policy making.

The sociopolitical contexts in which social policies develop highly condition the structures of incentives, opportunities, and constraints for their implementation. Indeed, social policies are public interventions affecting spheres of private wellbeing. Their impacts may be distorted by decisions subject not only to structural considerations but, above all, to cultural traditions and value systems. Social interventions have an historical dimension that correlates with the processes of state formation and nation-building and with the peculiarities of the public administration or the party system in each country. Likewise, the civic cultures, the intellectual traditions, the forms of collective action, or the different degrees of influence and power exerted by groups or interests’ coalitions are important factors shaping the type of social policies put in place nationally.

For purposes of comparisons among the various “welfare logics,” countries may be grouped as they structure themselves around one particular organizing principle, ideological underpinning, or cultural commonality. Individual empowerment (liberal Anglo-Saxon), public egalitarianism (social-democratic Nordic), institutional partnership (corporatist continental), or familialistic interpenetration (Mediterranean and Latin regions) could be singled out as core tenets of the various worlds of welfare capitalism. Further to this, new supranational social models induced by globalization follow distinct paths in trying to combine both economic growth and social cohesion by means of workfare and welfare.

Targeting And Universalism

Of high relevance for the provision of governmental social policies is the discussion between targeting and universalism. It has been generally argued that the implementation of public polices should follow strict criteria of selectivity. This was meant to ensure that disadvantaged groups would dispose of a comparative advantage or positive discrimination, and safety nets of social protection would be built in an effective manner. Likewise, it also has been pointed out that selectivity would avoid unwanted appropriation by well-off citizens of public monies and services targeted for the less-favored (Matthew Principle).

Alternatively, universal provision has been preferred as the institutional means to consolidate welfare arrangements for all citizens. From this perspective it has been argued that outcomes of market-based distribution are often more unequal than those of earnings-related social insurance programs. Paradoxically, and once time has elapsed in the long-term, nontargeted universal programs become more redistributive and effective than targeted ones.

The universal model can be highly redistributive, although it is counterintuitive because policy provision should follow the opposing strategy of “benefiting” the rich in order to benefit (in the long-run) the poor. Public opinion and voters’ attitudes tend to be uneasy with the counterargument that you should avoid taking away money from the rich to combat poverty by providing policies to the poor. This is particularly evident in situations of cost-containment and financial constraints for the funding of social policies. In such situations, targeted means-testing appears as a better entrenched claim to neutralize attempts of welfare retrenchment. This contention, however, should be qualified in the case of universalistic welfare states where political strength is based on the solidaristic moral logic whereby the rich accept high taxes in order to distribute resources to those who cannot take care of themselves.

Bibliography:

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Rothstein, Bo. “The Future of the Universal Welfare State: An Institutional Approach.” In Survival of the European Welfare State, edited by S. Kuhnle, 217–237. London: Routledge, 2000.

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