Variegated Intersections of Social Policy and Finance

The financialization of the welfare state often refers to the growing importance of financial markets and actors in the delivery of social services and goods such as pension or housing. Recent studies suggest that financialization may transpire without direct contact with financial markets, emphasizing the cultural virtues of finance, and showing how financial instruments and rationales encroach (or are adopted by) welfare state institutions and programs; example include programs such as students' loans, children savings accounts, as well as social impact bonds (SIBs, or pay for performance schemes) seeking improved outcomes for marginal groups.

The goal of this session is to bring together critical views of contemporary intersections between finance and social policy, and appraise such intersections from the standpoint of welfare state sociology and economic sociology. We invite empirical papers that explore experimentations with financial models or instruments in various contexts and social policy domains. Various approaches, theoretical perspectives and methods are welcomed. Key themes include (but are not limited to) the influence of financialized policy projects on existing modes of social provisioning and institutional logics (e.g. professionalism, marketization); their consequences for de- and re-commodification, social rights of citizenship and inequality, with particular attention to marginal social categories; the experiences of actors and groups partaking in such projects, including policymakers, service providers and service users; and the manner in which financial logics and instruments are negotiated, challenged or opposed for various reasons, or alternatively, adopted and/or adapted to serve various policy interests.