Jane Jenson (Professor Emeritus)

Jane Jenson is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science at the Université de Montréal, where her research over the past decade has focused on the changing face of social citizenship in Canada, Europe and Latin America. His theoretical approach derives from historical institutionalism, with particular emphasis on the reciprocal influences between ideas, institutions and interests. Over the past two decades, work, family and gender relations have been transformed, as have life courses, thereby undermining all the premises underpinning the social policies put in place in the three decades since 1945. Coupled with a political onslaught by neo-liberals in the 1980s and 1990s, these transformations called for a political analysis of the new social risks, and gave rise to the emergence of alternative perspectives. These include the social investment perspective that now structures many social citizenship regimes. Ideas about social investment and social innovation have been institutionalized, often at the initiative of finance ministers, international financial institutions or international organizations such as the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).