Introduction to the Handbook on Urban Social Policies: International Perspectives on Multilevel Governance and Local Welfare

In this introductory chapter we aim at providing the reader with the analytical tools to understand urban social policies. In particular, we address the territorial dimension of social policies and the role of cities as building blocks of social inclusion strategies. Our task is to disentangle the role and interplay between different jurisdictions, policy instruments, politics and contexts in the spatial construction of social policies and of their differences. Analytically, this entails addressing space an important dimension in this process, rather than considering it merely a container where social phenomena take place. This truism is at the very basis of the production of differentiated opportunity structures that contribute to territorialised patterns of social stratification, but also influence the way in which policies respond to shocks like the 2008 crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.