Social Policy in Iran: The Gap Between the State and the Nation

Social policy, along with the provision of welfare and the realization of social justice, acts like “social cement” and can be highlighted as an important tool to create a bond between the state and the nation. Social policy has been experienced in a wide range of political systems, from totalitarian to democratic ones, and is by no means limited to welfare states. Working on the assumption that the development of social policy as part of the tasks of the political system for the creation of distributive justice and procedural justice along with the character of accountability and efficiency can be considered as one of the tools of the driving state-nation-building: has social policy in Iran have the driving force for building a nation-state? Using the qualitative method and the comparative analysis of secondary data, the problematization of social policy in Iran, both in the theoretical and applied discourses, is highlighted. Theoretical analysis shows that, in a situation where the state is responsible for providing social and welfare services for the fulfillment of social citizenship, the presence of a social policy which is “abandoned” and “everyday” and suffers from “imbalance and non-coordination” will compromise the efficiency of the political system in carrying out its duties and pose a potential challenge to the legitimacy of the political system. A condition in which any reduction in the provision of social services, has led to the widening of the gap between the state and the nation and impeded the process of nation- state building in Iran.