Social policy and distributional conflict in the capitalist democracies. A preliminary comparative framework

The purpose of this paper is to take preliminary steps towards the development of a theoretical framework for the comparison of social policies in the industrialized nations, which combine a capitalistic economic system with political democracy. It is a part of a larger research project attempting to compare social policies in these countries against the background of the structure, organisation and relative power of their main classes and the role of shifting distributions of power between classes for the patterns and forms of class conflict in these societies.