SOCIAL CAPITAL AND WELFARE POLICIES IN THE POST PANDEMIC

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the role of social capital within the welfare policies in place in post pandemic society. This paper is going to go through the definition of social capital offered by the most important scholars such as Bourdieu Putnam and Coleman, they describe the importance of social capital as a collective resource, especially after the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic which had a disastrous social impact on our welfare system, highlighting an excessive social vulnerability of our country. Each individual actor, by investing in social capital or exploiting existing social capital, in fact creates externalities and produces a public good. In this sense, the concept can be useful for the study of the problems of production and conservation of public goods or common resources and, in general, of any situation in which dilemmas of collective action and development of cooperation arise. Understanding the effects of the pandemic will be fundamental to this end. The tragic spread of Covid-19 has put the role of the welfare state back in the spotlight. The overall transformation of human relations, the construction of new forms of cooperation and socialization, the opening of further democratic spaces and an unprecedented season of social rights characterize the importance of social capital. A welfare that makes you «feel good» is the conclusion of an open vision of the possible outcomes of the action and at the same time, one that allows you to grasp the dynamics of change. The goal is to achieve a perfect balance between social capital and welfare policies.