Reflections Regarding the Connections Between Social Policies and Social Structure

Abstract

This article presents the main debates that have developed in the SAP. S (Social Policy Analysis Seminar, UAB), in order to build a theoretical framework which should be able to analyse the relations between social policy and social structure. We start from some criticisms to the ideas of scholars like Esping-Andersen, neo-marxist authors like Offeor Gough, and social theorists like Habermas, and we arrive to the defence of three ideas: social structure is composed of some spheres of activity, some inequalities, and some collective social actors; social policy acts both compensating and constituting social inequalities; and the relation between social policy and social structure has a reflexive nature.