Keynote Speech | Silja Häusermann “Inequality, status grievances and policy demand”

Throughout advanced capitalist democracies, growing social and economic inequalities have led to the spread of social grievances. Beyond material need and precariousness, different status grievances have come into focus, as they fuel political radicalization and/or disengagement. Can policies – social policies in particular – effectively address such grievances and mitigate their political implications? A growing body of research provides cautious evidence for such mitigating effects. However, I will argue, we do not know yet if these effects stem from ‘inclusion’ or from ‘segmentation’ – two key mechanisms of social policy with highly different distributive and political implications. I will present initial evidence and the contours of a research agenda to study the links between status grievances and policy demand.