Nuevas políticas sociales y Estado social relacional

Abstract

According to the author, European societies continue to inspire social policies in a (state)
inclusion code —which here we call lib/lab (a blend of liberalism and the labour movement)—
which was in the past a progress factor, but is now increasingly weaker and obsolete. Social policies
find structural limits in their possibilities for innovation because they are drawn up as commitments
between State and market, using the tertiary sector to remedy the failures of the other two sectors.
In fact, social systems governed by lib/lab logics are headed for an irreversible crisis. This
document illustrates the new trends for configuration of social policies, which here are called
«societal». They are characterized by two main new developments: first, by the fact that they entrust
social inclusion to a complex citizenry (conceived as an interlocking of state citizenry and societal
citizenry), in which the collective subjects of civil society hold a fundamental role; second, because
they define social welfare, services and rights through a symbolic code of a human relationships
type. In terms of institutional order, an attempt is made to pass over to a «fourth Welfare State
model», in other words, to a fourth generation social State, after having left behind the paternalistic,
welfare and interventionist States. The author calls this the Human relationships social State.