The Politics of Family

Political science has been relatively silent about family, associating it with social welfare policy, gender, or the private sphere. However, family is also an important part of day-to-day politics, and legislators use family to accomplish a wide range of policy goals. This paper provides a theoretical framework for thinking about family as a part of the policy process that justifies policy positions, administers goods and services, and determines eligibility. I test the theoretical framework by evaluating where and how family is used in the policy process with a quantitative analysis of congressional speeches, the U.S. code, and federal regulations. Finally, a brief look at tax policy in the 1990s shows how family can be incorporated into political research. Ultimately, political actors use concepts of family across a broad spectrum of policy areas, including those not traditionally thought of as “family oriented,” suggesting a number of important implications and research questions for further study.