16. New Social Risks 2.0? Social vulnerability in the age of AI, populism, and the cost-of-living crisis

Flavia Fossati (University of Lausanne)

Carlo Knotz (University of Stavanger) 

Juliana Chueri (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) 

Eloisa Harris (University of Lausanne) 

Welfare state scholarship has long been concerned with social risks such as unemployment, sickness, or old age as central predictors of vulnerability in industrial societies. The shift to post-industrial economies, however, brought with it new social risks (Bonoli 2005) such as single parenthood or insufficient qualifications. In recent years, social risks and the vulnerability associated with them have continued to shift and fluctuate. For one, social risks that were once mitigated have now re-emerged (e.g. insufficient access to housing), especially in urban areas. Related is the broader risk of overt economic hardship, rising in many countries because of welfare cutbacks, and economic downturns (e.g. the recent cost-of-living crisis). Other risks have intensified because of political factors, primarily the increasing influence of right-wing populism. Having an immigrant or minority background, has become riskier due to changes in immigration, inclusion, and welfare state policies (e.g., Careja et al. 2016). Other minorities such as LGBTQ+ persons as groups face similar threats to their social rights. Third, social risks have expanded to groups that were previously privileged. First, the higher educated are increasingly vulnerable to technological redundancy due to the emergence of artificial intelligence technology (e.g., Acemoglu et al. 2022; Knotz et al. 2024). Moreover, being part of the cultural elite has become riskier due to the rise of populist and anti-elitist politics.  High school or university teachers and journalists that, often already precarious, face budget cutbacks and prospects of permanent austerity in several countries are one example.  

The goal of this stream is to take the concept of social risks another step further. We promote a broader agenda to reconsider the nature of social risks and how these have been changed by recent socio-economic and political transformations. We therefore welcome papers that analyze questions regarding today’s New Social Risks such as (but not limited to) exposure to (generative) AI in the labor market; how immigration and discrimination intersect with policymaking to produce exclusion and hardship; problems linked to the cost-of-living, i.e. housing (segregation).  

Papers should aim to contribute to our goal of developing an up-to-date picture of New Social Risks, including understanding their causes - including politicization, populism, and anti-elitism - and shifts in social stratification, and capturing the way they affect different and potentially new groups and their political consequences. Papers may reflect on the need to distinguish between short- and long-term risks and analyze how societies prioritize different risks in the context of permanent austerity. Finally, we invite papers which tackle solutions to attenuate the consequences of novel New Social Risks, such as policy strategies to counterbalance them. We welcome applications with different methodologies, concepts, and theoretical traditions, to produce a comprehensive discussion about the New Social Risks evident today.