Sandra Levitsky

Professor Levitsky’s research lies at the intersection of sociology of law, political sociology, and social movements. Her work considers the ways in which contemporary social welfare problems are changing cultural understandings of what types of social needs or interests ought to be protected as “rights” or “entitlements” in the U.S. context. Her book, Caring for Our Own: Why There Is No Political Demand for New American Social Welfare Rights (Oxford 2014), inverts an enduring question of social welfare politics. Rather than ask why the American state hasn't responded to unmet social welfare needs by expanding social entitlements, this book asks: Why don't American families view unmet social welfare needs as the basis for demands for new state entitlements?