State of the Art: 'The People' and Their Social Rights: What Is Distinctive about the Populism-Religion-Social Policy Nexus?

Rana Jawad, Daniel Béland, Emmanuele Pavolini

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

2 Citations (SciVal)
134 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The aims of this review article are two-fold: (1) to set out the key theoretical trends in the study of religion, populism and social policy as antithetical concepts that also share common concerns; (2) to re-assert the relevance of social policy to the social and political sciences by making the case for studying outlier or indeed rival topics together - in this case populism and religion. Social policy scholars do not necessarily associate these two topics with modern social policy, yet they have a long history of influence on societies all over the world; populism is also especially timely in our current era. The article contributes to the literature by: (a) helping social policy better understand its diverse and at times contradictory constituencies; (b) contributing to a more complex and inclusive understanding of social policy and, therefore, social welfare. In setting out the state-of-the-art, the article also draws upon research on social policy which spans various continents (North America, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa and Latin America) and a preceding paper collaboration by the authors on religion and social policy (Pavolini et al., 2017).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)267-281
Number of pages15
JournalSocial Policy and Society
Volume20
Issue number2
Early online date11 Jan 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Apr 2021

Keywords

  • Christianity
  • Islamic populism
  • Latin America
  • Populism
  • religion

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Political Science and International Relations

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