23. Life Course and the Politics of Social Policy

Anne-Marie Jeannet (University of Milan)

Giacomo Melli (University of Oxford) 

Leo Azzolini (University of Trento) 

In recent years, democracy has been consistently backsliding (V-Dem Report, 2023), with political engagement falling, and the joint rise of socio-political distrust and of forces skeptical of democracy. As articulated by the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2024, amongst others, a better understanding of the socio-economic drivers for this phenomenon is crucial to safeguard democracy.  Social policy constitutes a key lens to examine these changes: for instance, supporters of radical right forces are typically seen as ‘welfare chauvinists’ (Rydgren, 2007; Afonso and Rennwald, 2018) who favour redistribution but only to deserving groups (Halikiopoulou and Vlandas, 2020), although this view is increasingly challenged (Busemeyer, Rathgeb, and Sahm, 2022) or ‘left-authoritarians’ who bundle pro-redistribution preferences with a socially conservative stance. Within this rich debate, a scarce but rising body of research examines the Life Course dimensions of socio-political attitudes, focusing on whether they remain stable or evolve over time (Lersch, 2023). Evidence reveals divergent patterns: some scholars emphasise the stability of socio-political preferences across the life course (Kiley & Vaisey, 2020; Keskintürk, 2024), while others focus on explaining their evolutions: for instance, upward class mobility fosters support for economic conservatism (Langsæther et al., 2022; Helgason and Rehm, 2023; Ares & van Ditmars, 2024). These findings underscore the relevance of cumulative life-course experiences in shaping socio-political preferences.  Applying the Life Course approach to the Politics of Social Policy is thus a key opportunity to better understand the latter: relying for instance on longitudinal data to better adjudicate between stability and change, thus bringing us closer a causal understanding of the social mechanisms underpinning the main relationships (Gangl, 2022).  

We therefore invite submissions applying Life Course approaches to topics within the Politics of Social Policy, broadly defined. The Social Policy component may either be the outcome (e.g., how life course transitions such as union formation/dissolution or childbirth affect attitudes towards redistribution, or towards Early Childhood Education and Care) or the predictor (how a labour market reform shifts voting behaviour differentially according to social class).