Social Democratic Welfare State Research Articles

From Mothers of the “People's Home” to Biologically Rational Consumers

The aim of the present article is to study how women's alcohol consumption has been defined and contested in the Swedish press from 1955 to 2010 in relation to the development of Swedish society from a social democratic welfare state to a neoliberal competition state. Our material consists of articles published in the largest Swedish national and regional newspapers in 1955, 1965, 1977, 1982, 1995, 2004, and 2010. In the study, we apply Fraser's concepts of recognition and redistribution to analyse how the press contributed to the formation of cultural injustices and counter-claims through its recognition of women's drinking, and how these cultural injustices and counter-claims have conditioned the redistribution of societal resources. Our analysis shows that, during the study period, women were recognized in the Swedish press in limited and stigmatizing subject positions. These dominating representations of drinking women changed over time in an unpredictable way. As collectively shared, widely accepted cultural images, they tended to downplay the possibility of women achieving equal and just participation in cultural interaction, social activities, and healthcare services. In counter-discourses, the possibilities for women to formulate public claims in order to make surrounding structures more “enabling” of their independency, weakened during the study period.

Migrant domestic workers, social network strategies and informal markets for domestic services in Sweden

This article explores the dynamics of migration, working conditions and in/formalization in the domestic service sector in Sweden. Based on an interview study conducted in Stockholm 2009/2010, the article identifies crucial aspects of a range of large scale social and economic shifts in Sweden. Especially in focus are the conditions of migrant domestic workers (from Eastern Europe, Russia, Mongolia, Africa and South America) within a global division of labor. Compared to other European countries, Sweden is a unique case due to its social democratic welfare state traditions encouraging female work participation and public solutions for care, as well as its longstanding controversies around policies encouraging private domestic services (Gavanas, 2006; Gavanas, 2010a). Due to its hierarchical connotations in line with gender, class and ethnicity, proposals for tax deduction for domestic service have been highly contested in Sweden. The mere idea of a private domestic service goes against the grain of social democratic and feminist traditions as well as cultural preferences for public care (Gavanas, 2006; Öberg, 1999). However, since tax reductions for domestic services were introduced in 2007, rapid transformations have taken place in Sweden. In addition to the tax reductions, the Swedish market for domestic service is also expanding as a result of welfare state cutbacks, as well as privatization of public care, deregulation, internationalization and flexibilization of labor markets (Gavanas, 2006; Platzer, 2003; de los Reyes, 2002). In this article I am arguing that the domestic service market is undergoing segmentation based on social network segregation, as opposed to the policy ambition that a formal sector, as a result of the tax reductions, is replacing an informal sector.

The marketisation of care: Rationales and consequences in Nordic and liberal care regimes

The use of markets and market mechanisms to deliver care services is growing in both liberal and social democratic welfare states. This article examines debates and policies concerning the marketisation of eldercare and childcare in Sweden, England and Australia. It shows how market discourses and practices intersect with, reinforce or challenge traditions and existing policies and examines whether care markets deliver user empowerment and greater efficiency. Markets for eldercare and childcare have developed in uneven and context specific ways with varying consequences. Both politics and policy history help to shape market outcomes.

Three Worlds of Social Insurance: On the Validity of Esping-Andersen's Welfare Regime Dimensions

Esping-Andersen developed a typology of welfare regimes: conservative, liberal and social democratic, which are measured on the basis of seven indicators. We re-examine Esping-Andersen's data as well as replication data compiled by Scruggs and Allan to show that the seven indicators do not form valid measures of these welfare regimes. In addition to divergences in their measurement, the seven indicators are a mixture of institutional characteristics of welfare systems and outcome measures of social stratification. A measurement model based on the five institutional characteristics of welfare regimes that pertain to social insurance, however, does fit both the original and replication data. This article therefore proposes a three-dimensional model of conservative and liberal social insurance, which treats universal insurance coverage as the third dimension, instead of Esping-Andersen's ‘socialist’ regime. Although this does not fundamentally alter the typology of countries, it has implications for previous studies that employ country scores based on Esping-Andersen's method as independent variables in causal models. To illustrate these implications, this article re-examines a study by Noël and Thérien and calls into question their conclusions on the causal connections between the social democratic welfare state and levels of foreign aid.

‘Marx’ or the Market? Intra-party Power and Social Democratic Welfare State Retrenchment

Differences in the intra-party balance of power explain variation in social democratic responses to the economic crisis of the late 1970s. This article evidences this claim by analysing the case of welfare state retrenchment by social democratic parties. Welfare state retrenchment is electorally risky for social democrats and often contrary to their principles. Therefore cases of welfare state retrenchment by social democrats provide an excellent case study of the difficult trade-offs parties have to make between office, policy and vote pay-offs. The article claims that leadership-dominated parties advance office-seeking strategies and are therefore responsive to economic conditions and public opinion. Conversely, activist-dominated parties advance policy-seeking strategies and therefore support traditional social democratic policy platforms or seek more radical solutions. By comparing seven social democratic parties (Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK) between 1980 and 2005, this article explains variation in when social democrats introduced welfare state retrenchment.

Ökonomisierung von Pflege in Großbritannien, Schweden und Deutschland

This article deals with long-term care policies in three different welfare and long-term care regimes. Despite of divergent regime assignments-Great Britain: liberal welfare state und means-tested long-term care regime, Sweden: social-democratic welfare state and social services long-term care regime, and Germany: conservative-corporatist welfare state and subsidiarity long-term care regime-all three countries restructured their long-term care policies during the 1990s in the context of neoliberal economization and marketization. All countries introduced efficiency-oriented measures, foster competition between different social service providers, and increase choices of people in need of elderly care. By analyzing the regulation of long-term care policies since the National Health Service and Community Care Act (1990) in Great Britain, the Ädel reform (1992) in Sweden, and the introduction of the long-term care insurance (1994) in Germany, it can be shown that specific, national pathways, which due to the divergence of regimes and the specific long-term care problems within a country, have evolved.

Making markets with active labor market policies: the influence of political parties, welfare state regimes, and economic change on spending on different types of policies

Active labor market policies consist of a diverse set of policy tools with which to address joblessness and the degree to which governments invest in various policies as a response to rising unemployment varies widely. Fleshing out the determinants by policy type holds the promise of illuminating more clearly contestation over activation. To this end, this study analyzes the role of partisanship as well as welfare state regimes and the economy on spending patterns. We begin by detailing a theoretical framework for understanding variation in active labor market policies. Bonoli categorizes active labor market policies according to their market orientation and emphasis on human capital investment. In a study of social service reforms, Gingrich explains how all parties employ market-based reforms to empower some groups over others. These theories are then used to derive partisan hypotheses for direct job creation, training, labor market services, and employment incentives. Hypotheses for the four main types of active labor market policies are tested with regression analysis of 22 countries between 1985 and 2008. High spending on direct job creation, a non-market oriented policy type, is marginally significantly higher in the social democratic regime and by left governments prior to the activation turn. Left parties spend significantly more than other parties on training policies and after the activation turn these policies also become a distinct feature of the social democratic welfare state regime. The same trend exists for employment incentives. Center-right parties and those within the Christian democratic regime also spend marginally significantly higher on training policies before the activation turn, which is explained by results for deindustrialization. No partisan or regime effects are found for labor market services, which supports the view that all countries rely on these policies. The literature also suggests that a composite measure masks political conflict since this policy type encompasses diverse policies.

The Demise of the Driving Forces behind the Liberal and Social Democratic Welfare State

The European welfare state is in a state of crisis. On the surface it faces severe fiscal and political challenges. More fundamentally, however, it is a crisis of identity. The driving forces and conceptual framework that led to the growth of the European welfare state were very much products of socialist and liberal notions steeped in the modern era. If it is the case—as this text argues—that these ideas and ideals are becoming obsolete, then the welfare state is in need of a new justification.

走向中國生命倫理學——重審後基礎之醫學道德

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.當代西方面臨多重挑戰，有些是理論層面的，有些是實踐層面的。目前佔主導地位的西方世俗文化的普世主義的道德和生命倫理學工程認為道德基礎可以從道德哲學系統中的有效論證來獲得。這種思維方式源於西元前5 世紀希臘的世俗化，並在13 世紀的西方獲得新生。其後的體系基於對理性的信仰，喪失了維繫西方基督教信仰的承諾，導致康德的理性主義道德工程。1970 和80 年代出現的西方生命倫理學對個體自主性的強調試圖得到這一道德工程的印證，但這種努力已經擱淺：期望依賴普世主義的術語，通過有效理性論證來確保具體內容的所有嘗試，到頭來都不過是乞題論證、循壞論證、或無窮後退，因為人們沒有可能通過對基本前提和證據規則的理性反思來必然地達成共識。人們總是需要進一步的背景前提和規則。從歷史的脈絡來看，一旦西方世俗道德反思拋棄其上帝之眼的視角，標杆化的世俗道德體系就會陷入麻煩。一切強調無名氏的道德視角，無論是以沒有境遇的道德主體身份出現，還是以大多數人的最大利益原則出現，都無法提出標杆化的規範內容。文章認為，西方現代社會-民主制福利國家醫療資源的配置方式所引發的財政上的不可持續的危機帶來三個基本難題：(1) 醫療權利一旦確立，它們所帶來的道德風險；(2) 依靠後人為今人交付醫療服務的做法所帶來的人口風險；(3) 社會保險計劃誘發政治家玩弄空頭支票所帶來的政治風險。西方社會所面臨的危機，無論是經濟上的，還是文化上的，都為我們提供了很好的理由說明我們需要重新考量構建在中國文化視域下的、更有能力迎接21 世紀倫理學挑戰的生命倫理學。Unnoticed by many bioethicists, the very foundations of the dominant Western secular morality, and by extension the foundations of the dominant secular bioethics of the West, have been brought into question. After Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and in the light of arguments by philosophers from G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) to Richard Rorty (1931-2007) and Gianni Vattimo (1936-), it has become ever clearer that neither the content of the dominant Western secular morality nor the content of the dominant Western bioethics can be secured as canonical through sound rational argument. Western secular morality and Western secular bioethics have become foundationless. They are not secured by a canonical moral rationality or by being anchored in being as it is in itself. Theimplications are wide-ranging. This paper sketches both what it means to do bioethics after foundations, and what opportunities exist for rethinking the possibilities for a Chinese bioethics.Among the difficulties of the Enlightenment moral project is that it attempted to understand individuals in anonymously universalist terms. To do this, individuals had to be considered outside of their social and historical contexts. They were as a consequence portrayed as bare moral agents. This is most saliently the case with Immanuel Kant, who understands his morality in terms of the kingdom of ends, within which all members, save God, are fully interchangeable. The members of the kingdom of ends are persons without sex, sexual orientation, species-membership, history, or family. This state of affairs is tied to a universalist, egalitarian vision of persons and society, which in the West has been understood in terms of a social-democratic morality and political agenda. The difficulty is that it is now clear that there is a challenge to the financial sustainability of healthcare allocation within social-democratic welfare states. The difficulties stem from at least three challenges to its sustainability: (1) the moral hazard due to the inclination to overuse entitlements once they are established, (2) the demographic hazard due to relying on future generations to pay for the health care of current recipients (i.e., when there are fewer children, financing becomes difficult), and (3) the political hazard due to social insurance schemes that reward politicians for promising benefits even when sufficient funds may not be available.For scholars doing bioethics in China, this state of affairs means that Chinese bioethicists are freed from having to meet secular Western bioethicists on the terms established by secular Western bioethicists. Instead, they can fashion an authentically Chinese bioethics, which nests its own moral commitments within the traditional Confucian moral narrative of China. A Chinese bioethics need not, and should not, in content or form be like the bioethics of the dominant secular morality and bioethics of the West. Given the character of secular morality and bioethics, given its inability to establish a universal, canonical morality through sound rational argument, as well as given the particularity of all morality and bioethics that possesses content, and given the promising moral content salient in Chinese culture, a move by Chinese to establish a Chinese bioethics becomes quite plausible.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 46 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.

The effect of integration and social democratic welfare states on immigrants’ educational attainment: a multilevel estimate

Through the analysis of 22 European countries and Canada, this article seeks to investigate the assumption that political macro level variables such as welfare state systems and immigration regimes shape the conditions encountered by young immigrants and thus have an impact on their school performance. The results show that native students benefit from social-democratic welfare states and immigration-friendly integration regimes, whereas immigrant students underperform under these types of regimes. Thus, while the finding for native students supports the argument found in the body of literature, claiming that social-democratic welfare states lead to a reduction in inequality and to less stratification, the findings for immigrant students suggest that positive discrimination may under some circumstances lead to a counterproductive result. The argument is tested with a multilevel modelling procedure on three levels (student, school and country) based on different data sources.

The political economy of health promotion: part 2, national provision of the prerequisites of health†

Governmental authorities of wealthy developed nations differ in their professed commitments and activity related to the provision of the prerequisites of health through public policy action. Part 1 of this article showed how nations identified as social democratic or liberal welfare states were those where such commitments are present. Nations identified as conservative or Latin welfare states were less likely to express such commitments. However, the political economy literature suggests that despite their expressed commitments to provision of the prerequisites of health, liberal welfare states fare rather poorly in implementing these commitments. The opposite is seen for conservative welfare states. Social democratic welfare states show both commitments and public policy consistent with this objective. Part 2 of this article documents the extent to which public policy activity that provides the prerequisites of health through public policy action differs among varying welfare state regimes. Despite extensive rhetoric concerning the prerequisites of health, nations identified as liberal welfare states do a rather poor job of meeting these goals and show evidence of adverse health outcomes. In contrast, social democratic welfare states fare better in providing such prerequisites--consistent with their rhetorical statements--with better health outcomes. Interestingly, conservative--and to a lesser extent Latin--nations fare well in providing the prerequisites of health despite their lack of explicit commitment to such concepts. Findings suggest that health promoters have to concern themselves with the broad strokes of public policymaking whether or not these policy activities are identified as health promotion activities.

The political economy of health promotion: part 1, national commitments to provision of the prerequisites of health

Canada is a leader in developing health promotion concepts of providing the prerequisites of health through health-promoting public policy. But Canada is clearly a laggard in implementing these concepts. In contrast, France is seen as a nation in which health promotion concepts have failed to gain much traction yet evidence exists that France does far better than Canada in providing these health prerequisites. Such findings suggest that it is the political economy--or form of the welfare state--of a nation rather than its explicit commitments to health promotion concepts--that shape provision of the prerequisites of health. Part 1 of this article examines how health promotion rhetoric specifically concerned with provision of the prerequisites of health differs among nations identified as being either liberal, social democratic, conservative or Latin welfare states. Governing authorities of nations that are liberal or social democratic welfare states are more likely to make explicit rhetorical commitments to provision of the prerequisites of health, the conservative and Latin states less so. Part 2 of this article provides evidence however, that despite their rhetorical commitments to provision of the prerequisites of health, liberal welfare state nations fall well behind not only the social democratic nations, but also the conservative welfare states in implementing public policies that provide the prerequisites of health. The Latin welfare states express little commitment to provision of the prerequisites of health and rather limited public policy activity towards meeting this aim.

Sex inequalities in physical and mental functioning of British, Finnish, and Japanese civil servants: Role of job demand, control and work hours

In general, women report more physical and mental symptoms than men. International comparisons of countries with different welfare state regimes may provide further understanding of the social determinants of sex inequalities in health. This study aims to evaluate (1) whether there are sex inequalities in health functioning as measured by the Short Form 36 (SF-36), and (2) whether work characteristics contribute to the sex inequalities in health among employees from Britain, Finland, and Japan, representing liberal, social democratic, and conservative welfare state regimes, respectively. The participants were 7340 (5122 men and 2218 women) British employees, 2297 (1638 men and 659 women) Japanese employees, and 8164 (1649 men and 6515 women) Finnish employees. All the participants were civil servants aged 40–60 years. We found that more women than men tended to have disadvantaged work characteristics (i.e. low employment grade, low job control, high job demands, and long work hours) but such sex differences were relatively smaller among employees from Finland, where more gender equal policies exist than Britain and Japan. The age-adjusted odds ratio (OR) of women for poor physical functioning was the largest for British women (OR = 2.08), followed by for Japanese women (OR = 1.72), and then for Finnish women (OR = 1.51). The age-adjusted OR of women for poor mental functioning was the largest for Japanese women (OR = 1.91), followed by for British women (OR = 1.45), and then for Finnish women (OR = 1.07). Thus, sex differences in physical and mental health was the smallest in the Finnish population. The larger the sex differences in work characteristics, the larger the sex differences in health and the reduction in the sex differences in health after adjustment for work characteristics. These results suggest that egalitarian and gender equal policies may contribute to smaller sex differences in health, through smaller differences in disadvantaged work characteristics between men and women.

War, Xenophobia, and the Death Agony of the Danish Social Democratic Welfare State

War, Xenophobia, and the Death Agony of the Danish Social Democratic Welfare State

Managers, Managerialism and Social Work with Children and Families: The Deformation of a Profession?

Managers and managerialism have brought about a fundamental transformation in the way welfare organisations carry out government policy. What social workers now do is set and tightly controlled by managers, this reflecting the move away from the administering of public services to their management. It stems from successive Conservative and New Labour governments accepting the neo-liberal ideology that the market is superior to the state and that public services need to be managed much like the private sector. Social workers no longer work in the administrative systems of the social democratic welfare state, with the increased power of managers undermining the system within which social work had developed. This paper argues this change has contributed to the deformation of social work as a profession, initially in relation to adult users and now in relation to children and families. Practitioners' success is now often simply measured in terms of whether managers' targets have been met. The result is that scope for a progressive, even radical/critical, practice is greatly reduced, though spaces that remain need to be utilised.

From Design Nations to Fashion Nations? Unpacking Contemporary Scandinavian Fashion Dreams

To many people, the link between Scandinavia and design is still a familiar story of functionalism and the social democratic welfare states of the twentieth century. But until recently the Scandinavian countries—Denmark, Norway, and Sweden—had not sought to connect themselves with fashion design. This, however, has changed since the turn of the millennium. Present-day government institutions, industry organizations, fashion media, and industry form partnerships that not only give the fashion industry a prominent status in deindustrialized economies, but also potentially change the image of the nations. In this article I unfold what I term the fashion dreams of the Scandinavian countries in order to examine what their experiences tell us—on one hand, the role of fashion for the nation, and on the other hand, the contribution of national governments to the polycentrism of the fashion world.

Swedish Family Policy – Continuity and Change in the Nordic Welfare State Model

AbstractThe main question addressed in this regional issue is whether or not the Nordic welfare states can still be considered a distinct welfare regime cluster given recent changes, such as the introduction of more private elements into the welfare state. The Nordic welfare states are often described as emphasizing full employment, economic and gender equality, and universal access to cradle‐to‐grave welfare state benefits and services. In the case of Sweden, often pointed to as the model of a social democratic welfare state, such elements remain intact in most aspects of the welfare state, even given the challenges presented by the global neo‐liberal economic paradigm since the 1970s. One way to determine whether or not the Nordic welfare states remain a distinct cluster is to provide an in‐depth examination of various welfare state policies in each Nordic country. To contribute to this analysis, an investigation of family policy in the Swedish context will be provided. Even given recent challenges, such as the introduction of private for‐profit childcare providers and a home care allowance, I argue that Swedish family policy has remained largely social democratic in its underlying goals, and thus acts to support the case for a distinct Nordic welfare regime cluster.

Brazil beyond Lula

A review of the achievements of the Lula administration and an examination of the contrasting political and social programs that disputed the Brazilian presidential elections in October 2010 reveal that there has been significant progress toward the consolidation of a social democratic welfare state in Brazil and that further progress is possible but far from guaranteed under the new administration.

Giving money to strangers: European welfare states and social trust

Jensen C, Svendsen GT. Giving money to strangers: European welfare states and social trustInt J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 3–9 © 2009 The Author, Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare.Why would you give money to strangers? That is the fundamental question posed by a new body of research into the relationship between social trust and willingness to accept high taxes and extensive welfare states. The literature argues that generalised trust causes and upholds universal welfare state institutions, an entirely plausible explanation of the Scandinavian social democratic welfare states. However, it cannot explain the presence of very large welfare states in Continental Europe, where the level of generalised trust is much lower than in Scandinavia. The article adds to the existing literature by arguing that the ‘bumblebee’ of conservative welfare states is characterised by particularistic trust and familiaristic welfare institutions, which are functional equivalents to the mechanisms found in Scandinavia. Future research into the trust–welfare state relationship should therefore focus on the trust profile of a country to understand how the welfare state provides its citizens with benefits.

Review: Modern Swedish Design: Three Founding Texts, by Uno Åhrén, Gunnar Asplund, Wolter Gahn, Ellen Key, Sven Markelius, Gregor Paulsson, Eskil Sundahl, Lucy Creagh, Helena Kåberg, Barbara Miller Lane, and Kenneth Frampton

The three texts that comprise Modern Swedish Design make the case for modernism in the home, for domestic products, and for architecture. While Gregor Paulsson's Better Things for Everyday Life and the jointly authored acceptera (always written with lower-case letters) have been available in facsimile reprints (1995, 1980 respectively), they have never before been translated into English. From time to time passages from acceptera have been cited by Anglophone scholars or filtered through Swedish authors—usually in reference to the work of the best known of the book's architect-writers, Gunnar Asplund. Modern Swedish Design helps fill that gap by presenting these three important writings, originally published in the first three decades of the twentieth century.The short introductory essays by Barbara Miller Lane (on Ellen Key), Helena Kåberg (on Gregor Paulsson) and Lucy Creagh (on the acceptera team) adequately sketch out the context in which the publications first appeared and the audiences to which they were addressed. The translations by Anne-Charlotte Harvey (Key) and David Jones (Paulsson and acceptera) read well, and only in a few places have words or terms been translated too directly from the Swedish. While the broad theme of emerging modernity and its consequences couples the three texts, there is a certain apples-and-oranges aspect to the book, given that Ellen Key addresses the home, room, and décor more broadly, Paulsson centers on objects and industrial production, and acceptera discusses the social linkage between architecture and contemporary life. On the other hand, as a group the three texts sketch out a vision for a modern Swedish design environment that extends from the small object to the city.Ellen Key (1849–1926) was a highly influential social reformer and widely read author whose interests spanned suffrage and the recasting of government (she actively argued for what became Sweden's social democratic welfare state), as well as design. It is a surprise, although no wonder, that one of her principal translators (into German) was Mamah Bouton Borthwick, and that Key was greatly appreciated by Borthwick's paramour, Frank Lloyd Wright. Key's railing against clutter and accumulation finds an echo in Wright's own lectures and essays and more distantly in Le Corbusier's Vers une architecture. Her appreciation for the simplicity and