a politics of the family

In a recent dissertation committee meeting, an adviser pushed me on what I mean by “the politics of family.” This person, a historian, asked if this formulation referred to a set of policies, a series of discourses, or social norms of behavior and custom. My response: yes.

By a “politics of the family” or just a “family politics,” I have in mind a constellation of policies, discourses, relationalities, and norms rooted in conceptions of familial relationships. Focusing solely on any one of these elements fails to comprehend how they feed into one another and condition political possibility. Family policy, such as AFDC/TANF welfare or  child support enforcement, is both shaped by norms of family life and shapes familial relations for those who interact with policy enforcement mechanisms. Similarly, discourses of “good” or “bad” parenting “choices” influence voters on the appropriate policy responses to issues affecting families. These elements can be variously described as liberal, radical, conservative, or neoliberal. Characterized as the interplay between policies, norms, relationships, and discourses, a politics of the family is a complex but pervasive element of American political culture.