The regulatory role of social policy: Macao's social security development

Central to the regulation theory of social policy is the argument that the welfare state has played a key role in the maintenance of the proper working of capitalism. Starting from the core argument of the theory, this article attempts to demonstrate that the Social Security Fund, a cornerstone of Macao's social security system, achieved three major regulatory functions in relation to the perpetuation of capitalism from the establishment of the fund in 1990 to 2005: legitimisation, reproduction and disciplinisation. There was a watershed year in 2002 in which the predominant regulatory forms displayed a qualitative shift from legitimisation to reproduction and disciplinisation. The shift is explained in terms of different interplays of the political and economic forces within the basic structural constraint of the capitalist social system.