This article studies the construction of social policies in the 1936 constitutional reform in Colombia. The aim is to reconstruct the sociopolitical process through which multiple and diverse actors participated in formulating the resulting dispositions. Here, social policies are understood to be important elements in the building of nation states in the XX century, and the perspective from which this historical process is studied is that of the relational theory of the State. Based on the records of the debates and discussions of the constitutional reform in Congress, alongside a bibliographical revision on the subject, a complex process is brought to light, one that does not result from or respond to the sole Machiavellian or progressive initiative of any specific sector. This process is collective, sociopolitical in nature, and looking at it from this new perspective allows not only for a new reading on what is a key juncture in Colombia’s political history but also for a look at the country’s political organization patterns and to a moment in its process of state building.