Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016)

236

Global and Transnational Social Policy: Contexts, Policies and Processes

RC19 Sociology of Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policy (host committee)

Language: English

A growing literature on global and transnational social policy contains both normative and analytical dimensions. Recent contributions have addressed contemporary challenges to global social policy, both in terms of policy prescriptions and in terms of understanding the processes of “global” policy diffusion or translation (Kaasch and Stubbs, 2014; Clarke, Bainton, Lendvai and Stubbs, 2015; Kaasch and Martens, forthcoming). 
In terms of global social policy prescriptions, the articulation of a global social policy agenda incorporating redistribution, regulation and rights now faces a “crowded playground” of a multiplicity of actor voices, and an increasing recognition of the ecological dimension. A polycentric world and a resource-limited planet pose direct challenges to the articulation of global social policy understood either as a supranational body of institutions and policies or as a raft of global prescriptions for national social policy. 
There has also been increasing attention to the ways in which “global” policy ideas are diffused, contested and translated in transnational policy spaces. Understanding the processes and relations involved in the production, translation, and reception of “global” policy requires different accounts of agency, sensitive to the growing flexibilisation of roles in global social governance arenas. 
This regular session invites papers which address contemporary challenges to global social policy prescriptions and processes, including those posed by climate change, transnational social class re-composition, changing global governance processes and transnational migration flows. Posters: