Abstract
A number of scholars have recently shown that key social policy concepts like ‘welfare state’ are both vague and problematic. Drawing on the international literature on the role of ideas in social policy, this article compares the development of two major policy concepts in two countries where the language of social policy is openly contentious: the USA and France. Focusing on the last three decades, the article discusses the meaning and development of the concepts of ‘social security’/‘sécurité sociale’ and ‘welfare state’/‘État-providence’ in both countries. As suggested, these two concepts have long been controversial, in part because they are typically involved in the inherently political drawing and redrawing of the contested boundaries of state action. Overall, the article explains how the comparative analysis of social policy language can help scholars adopt a more reflexive approach.