Charlotte Boucher

Please tell us about your research project
I am currently in the third year of my PhD in political science, at Sciences Po’s Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics. My research is at the crossroads of comparative political economy and political sociology. I am interested in the political consequences of the transformations of labour markets and social protection systems in Europe. While the advent of the wage-earning society and the concomitant development of welfare states have contributed to social cohesion and the stability of democracies in Europe after the Second World War, rising inequalities, employment precariousness and financial pressures on welfare states have since put liberal democracies to the test. As European economies have followed different growth trajectories (and therefore different labour market and social protection reforms) since the end of the 1970s, I am trying to understand how these have shaped the distribution of feelings of insecurity in different ways among our societies, and how this is linked to the rise of support for far-right parties in Europe.

Could you please tell us a bit more about your scholarship/exchange programme?
I will be on exchange in Oxford University for the Hilary and Trinity terms thanks to the OxPo exchange program (between Oxford University and Sciences Po Paris). During this period, I will be affiliated to the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) and will be supervised by Pr. David Rueda from Nuffield College.

First impressions of Oxford/the University?
The atmosphere in Oxford is unique! It is both peaceful, which is conducive to writing a thesis, but also very dynamic with its many colleges and students' associations, which is very nice to meet other students and researchers from a variety of disciplines. It might even be easy to get lost with all these frequent seminars and conferences and the plentiful extraordinary libraries …