La conquista de la igualdad y las acciones afirmativas: de la igualdad formal a la igualdad sustancial

Abstract

After World War Two, the word «equality» gets a new meaning as «no-discrimination», as the minority rights revolution poses new challenges to citizenship. The recognition of equa rights to minorities both in the public sphere and in the labor market entails a search for new political conditions and public policies to accommodate them. Affirmative action policies were thought to produce real equality, although they were received with suspicion, since the articulation of equality and difference seemed controversial. To shed some light on the issue, it is useful both to differentiate between two meanings of equality: formal and substantial ones, and to carefully analyze the notion of impartiality.