Towards the Welfare State Sociology

Baranowski, Mariusz

Towards the Welfare State Sociology

Abstract

The undeniable fact is that various social sciences and other disciplines constitute the research perspective which relates to the practice of a multidimensional phenomenon. The welfare state is an excellent example of such notion, which in its nature uniﬁes many theoretical and practical positions. It seems, however, that the economic and political dimensions of the welfare state (as conceptual or pro-social proposals) are disproportionately exposed both on the basis of scientiﬁc reﬂection and pragmatic approaches used by the institutions of the state. This tendency to think in economic and political terms, which incidentally is maintained for several decades, represents: (a) only one side of a complex nature of social welfare, and (b) a signiﬁcant reductionism, leading to the elimination of sociological, cultural, educational, and psychological consequences of the functioning of the welfare state. This article is designed to reverse the trend of the dominant perception of the construct of the welfare state in economic and political terms, and replace it with the highlight of the mainly sociological dimension of this phenomenon (the welfare state sociology). However, it does not mean abandonment of the economic and political dimensions in general, as they are an integral part of the issue.