Abstract
This article explores whether and how the neo-liberal ideology has adapted to the Nordic welfare model by studying the attitudes of voters and grass-roots members of the Danish party Liberal Alliance towards the welfare state. This inquiry into one of the key issues for the neo-liberal ideology is inspired by theory on how an ideology will adapt to its context. The expectation outlined in the article is for the neo-liberals of this party to favour features that make the Nordic welfare model distinctive – extensive governmental responsibility, especially for children and the elderly, and a universalistic approach to providing welfare. I have explored this question using a mixed-methods approach, where I analyse a survey of voters and interviews with grass-roots members of the party. Combined this shows that the neo-liberals in Liberal Alliance do support a role for the welfare state that extends beyond a minimum welfare state, especially for the care of children, but they view old age and retirement mostly as a problem each individual must deal with. Regarding the universalistic approach to providing welfare, the neo-liberals seem torn between two different tendencies, one being a perception of a fair way to provide welfare and the other the idea of a selective welfare state as a neo-liberal core idea, which leads to ambivalent attitudes. I argue that this results in a form of the neo-liberal ideology that has adapted to the Nordic welfare model.
Highlights
Over the last 30 years the neo-liberal ideology has gained considerable political influence across the world, including the Nordic countries (Saad Filho & Johnston, 2004; Turner, 2008)
The latest, and perhaps clearest, example of the neo-liberal ideology gaining a foothold in a Nordic country is the Danish party Liberal Alliance, which from 2008 onwards has successfully established itself on the political scene
There is no single definition of what the term neo-liberalism covers, and there is great variation in how the term is used throughout the academic literature
Summary
Over the last 30 years the neo-liberal ideology has gained considerable political influence across the world, including the Nordic countries (Saad Filho & Johnston, 2004; Turner, 2008). The work of Freeden (1998; 2013) is central, as it outlines how ideological adaptation, or ideological morphology, as Freeden (1998; 2013) terms it, can be studied This will be linked to literature on the Nordic welfare model in order to describe the context for neo-liberalism in a Nordic country. I have used the three criteria both to structure the analysis and to evaluate the results Though these are not strict hypotheses, they have provided a sense of whether it is reasonable to argue for the existence of a neo-liberal ideology that has adapted to the Nordic welfare model. This article has aimed for the same combination of an overview of their attitudes with an in-depth understanding of their reasoning
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