The Moving Frontier in Denmark: Voluntary-State Relationships since 1850

2004 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 605-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
LARS SKOV HENRIKSEN ◽  
PETER BUNDESEN

This article explores the interplay between state formation and voluntary action in order to describe and understand the changing scope and type of voluntary activities and the varying role of the voluntary sector. It does so by following voluntary human service organisations within the sector of social welfare in Denmark over a period of 150 years. Four different phases of voluntary-state relationships are identified. The first phase of liberal social policy supported a dual model with a strong call for self-help and philanthropic initiatives. The next phase, in which social rights and public responsibility gradually were introduced and expanded, supported a collaborative model with a strong public–private partnership. The third phase, in which the idea of a universalistic welfare state dominated, tended to marginalise voluntary service production but strengthen interest representation. Finally, the fourth phase, in which heavy critique was thrust upon the welfare state, opened up new spaces for voluntary organisations to assume civil obligations.

2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lena Andersson-Skog

The twentieth-century history of the Swedish welfare state and public-service sector is critical to understanding the changing role of women in Sweden, as the expansion of the country's service production, beginning in the 1960s, has been mainly the result of wel-fare-state policies. Yet women's self-employment and wage work in the service industry has been neglected as an economic factor in both traditional economic and business history accounts and in historical studies of gender. Some suggestions are made for future explorations of the Swedish service sector as it operates in the shadow of the welfare state.


2004 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jørn Hansen

Idrætsfaciliteters og forsamlingshuses rolle og betydning for idrætten i Sønderjylland fra ca. år 1890 og frem.From resistance and struggle to welfare. Village halls, Folk high schools and sports halls in Southern Jutland Village halls and the gymnastics associated with them were established in the first instance as part of a cultural reaction against the attempt to extend the activities of German associations in Northern Schleswig. It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that they started in those areas with the strongest Danish affiliations close to Rødding Folk High School and the Kongeå border with, for instance, the first Danish village hall being built in Skrave. In the second phase, after the drawing up of the new border, it was important for Danish culture to get a foothold in those new areas of Southern Jutland with predominantly German affiliations, and an example of this was the construction of the Danish village hall in Jyndevad. In the third phase, when differences between those with German and those with Danish affiliations were resolved by cooperation, sports halls gradually took over the role of village halls, but there was an attempt, similar to that in the first two phases, to retain a principal of proximity in relation to the development of sport. The construction of the sports hall in Tønder is an exemplary expression of sport’s incursion into the welfare state, while the construction of the hall in Agerskov provides an example of the attempt on the part of popular forces to retain the same principal of proximity that applied to village halls.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
VINCENT BAKKER ◽  
OLAF VAN VLIET

Abstract Raising employment has been at the heart of EU strategies for over twenty years. Social investment, by now a widely debated topic in the comparative welfare state literature, has been suggested as a way to pursue this. However, there are only a couple of systematic comparative analyses that focus on the employment outcomes associated with social investment. Analyses of the interdependence of these policies with regard to their outcomes are even more scarce. We empirically analyse the extent to which variation in employment rates within 26 OECD countries over the period 1990-2010 can be explained by effort on five social investment policies. We additionally explore the role of policy and institutional complementarities. Using time-series cross-section analyses we find robust evidence for a positive association between effort on ALMPs and employment rates. For other policies we obtain mixed results. ALMPs are the only policies for which we observe signs of policy interdependence, which point at diminishing marginal returns. Additionally, our analysis demonstrates that the interdependence of social investment policies varies across welfare state regimes. Together, this indicates that the employment outcomes of social investment policies are also contingent on the broader framework of welfare state policies and institutions.


Author(s):  
Henrik Jordahl ◽  
Mårten Blix

The Swedish welfare state is known for providing extensive services to its citizens. Much less well known is that a fair amount of the services are delivered by private for-profit firms. The first steps of privatization were taken in the mid-1980s for childcare services at the municipal level, and the government often found itself scrambling to introduce regulation afterwards. Other sectors were subsequently privatized, most notably through an extensive voucher scheme to provide choice in compulsory and upper-secondary education. A key question throughout this process has been how to maintain the Swedish egalitarian ethos while undergoing extensive privatization. How has the country managed to reap the benefits from market forces without endangering equitable outcomes? The Swedish system is no middle road between socialism and capitalism. Instead, it is more akin to a large-scale laboratory for institutional design with lessons that should be of broad relevance to other countries aiming to get high-quality welfare services while containing costs. Focusing on what others can learn from Sweden, the book makes accessible original research on schools, health care, and elderly care. The privatization of service production has occurred despite major political controversy between two competing visions for the welfare state. Successful experiments have spread organically to neighbouring municipalities. What was done well in this process and what were the mistakes? The book addresses the fundamental economic challenges, the trends of the future, and the implications for institutional design


2021 ◽  
pp. 91-106
Author(s):  
Anna Magdalena Kosińska

The analyzed ruling is the first judgement which the Court of Justice passed in order to provide interpretationfor the new Student Directive (2016/801 of 11 May 2016 on the conditions of entry and residence ofthird-country nationals for the purposes of research, studies, training, voluntary service, pupil exchange schemesor educational projects and au pairing). Due to its judiciary activism, the Court was able to find a connectionbetween the case pending before a national court and EU law in the case of M.A. In the end, the Court finallydecided that in the case at issue, regarding the rights of a foreign national to apply for a residence permit for thepurpose of enrolling in second-cycle studies programme in Poland, the procedure of applying for a long-stay visaon the grounds of national law must be safeguarded by the guarantees under Article 47 of the Charter of FundamentalRights. The guarantees apply to the actual states in which EU law is applicable – in this case the “StudentDirective.” It seems that the ruling in the case of M.A. will play a crucial role in facilitating students’ – TCNs’ – entryinto the territory of the Republic of Poland, while the Polish legislator, in all probability, will be obliged to changethe provisions of the national law in such a way as to make it possible for future students to access a full array oflegal remedies against the negative decisions of consuls.


2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 127-144
Author(s):  
Paul A. Chambers

The Colombian government’s noncompliance with the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement’s Labor Action Plan calls into question not only the government’s intentions but also the efficacy of human rights activism and discourse for social resistance to neoliberalism. Colombia has managed to adjust the narrative on human rights and improve its international image, paving the way for U.S. ratification of the free-trade agreement despite the fact that the human rights situation continues to be very serious. Its success in this is due to the way in which the debate on the agreement and human rights was framed—with a very narrow focus on trade unionists’ rights and a discourse that did not link civil and political rights to economic and social rights—and to the ideological affinity between neoliberalism and the dominant liberal discourse on human rights. El incumplimiento del Plan de Acción Laboral por parte del gobierno colombiano, en el marco del TLC con Estados Unidos, pone en tela de juicio no solo las intenciones del gobierno, sino la utilidad y eficacia del activismo y discurso de los derechos humanos para la resistencia social al neoliberalismo. El Estado colombiano ha logrado ajustar la narrativa sobre los derechos humanos y mejorar su imagen internacional, lo que le permitió ser “premiado” con la ratificación del TLC a pesar de que la situación de derechos humanos siguiera siendo grave. Esto se debe a la forma en que se enmarcó el debate sobre el TLC y los derechos humanos—con un enfoque demasiado restringido y un discurso que no integró los derechos civiles y políticos con los derechos económicos y sociales—y a la afinidad ideológica entre el neoliberalismo y el discurso dominante de los derechos humanos.


2019 ◽  
Vol 189 (4) ◽  
pp. 354-357
Author(s):  
Mikael Rostila

Abstract In this issue of the Journal, Baranyi et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2019;000(00):000–000) examine the longitudinal associations of perceived neighborhood disorder and social cohesion with depressive symptoms among persons aged 50 years or more in 16 different countries. An important contribution of their article is that they study how neighborhood-level social capital relates to depression in different welfare-state contexts. Although the authors provide empirical evidence for some significant differences between welfare states in the relationship between social capital and depression, they say little about potential explanations. In this commentary, I draw attention to welfare-state theory and how it could provide us with a greater understanding of Baranyi et al.’s findings. I also discuss the potential downsides of grouping countries into welfare regimes. I primarily focus on the associations between social cohesion and depression, as these associations were generally stronger than those for neighborhood disorder and depression. Finally, I provide some suggestions for future research within the field and discuss whether the findings could be used to guide policies aimed at increasing social cohesion and health.


1998 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayşe Buğra

This article presents a comparative analysis of the social role of two voluntary associations of Turkish businessmen: TUSIAD (The Association of Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen) and MUSIAD (The Association of Independent Industrialists and Businessmen). These associations are approached both as mechanisms of interest representation and as agents of two different class strategies. Hence, the article highlights two types of organizational activities that accompany interest articulation and representation: first, the activities which seek to bind the “bearers of interest” or “members of class” into coherent communities, and second, those aimed at the promotion of particular macro-level social projects.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 906-936
Author(s):  
Fernando da Cruz Souza ◽  
Nelson Russo de Moraes

A austeridade permanente e a disputa de quem ganha o quê, quando e como, lógica intrínseca às políticas públicas, colocam as políticas sociais brasileiras em constantes testes. O universalismo tentativo iniciado com a Constituição de 1988 pareceu caminhar para uma ampliação da cidadania social no país, mas tem sofrido constantes ataques por falta de um compromisso de classes em torno de um projeto de país mais ou menos homogêneo. Diante dessa falta de precisão no estabelecimento Estado de Bem-estar brasileiro, em especial, pelo encolhimento no investimento público previsto para os próximos anos e com os governos mais alinhados a maior mercadorização dos serviços sociais, torna-se importante revisitar a trajetória do Welfare State em suas origens e objetivos, a fim de compreender como chegamos até aqui, o que podemos esperar do futuro e quais a intervenções necessárias para que nos aproximemos de uma inclusão sensível do grande contingente de pessoas ainda sujeitas a uma cidadania de segunda classe no Brasil. Para atender a esse objetivo, este trabalho realizou uma revisão bibliográfica convencional sobre o Estado de Bem-Estar Social, elencando a partir dela as razões históricas de seu surgimento, a tipologia de Esping-Andersen, a noção de funcionamentos e capacitações de Amartya Sen e os períodos constitutivos do bem-estar no Brasil.   PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Proteção social. Desenvolvimento. Direitos sociais.     ABSTRACT The permanent austerity and the dispute over who wins what, when and how, logic intrinsic to public policies, puts Brazilian social policies in constant tests. The tentative universalism that began with the 1988 Constitution seemed to be heading for a broadening of social citizenship in the country, but it has been under constant attack for the lack of a class compromise around a homogeneous country project. Given this lack of precision in the establishment of the Brazilian Welfare State due to the shrinking public investment expected in the coming years and with the governments most aligned to the greater commodification of social services, it is important to revisit the trajectory of the Welfare State in its origins and objectives, in order to understand how far we have come, what we can expect from the future and what interventions are needed to bring us closer to a sensitive inclusion of the large contingent of people still subject to second class citizenship in Brazil. To meet this objective, this paper has carried out a conventional bibliographical review of the Welfare State, listing from it the historical reasons for its emergence, Esping-Andersen's typology, Amartya Sen's notion of functioning and capabilities and the constitutive periods of welfare in Brazil.   KEYWORDS: Social protection. Development. Social rights.     RESUMEN La austeridad permanente y la disputa sobre quién gana qué, cuándo y cómo, la lógica intrínseca a las políticas públicas, pone a las políticas sociales brasileñas en pruebas constantes. El tentativo universalismo que comenzó con la Constitución de 1988 parecía dirigirse a una ampliación de la ciudadanía social en el país, pero ha estado bajo ataque constante por la falta de un compromiso de clase en torno a un proyecto de país más o menos homogéneo. Dada esta falta de precisión en el establecimiento del Estado de bienestar brasileño, en particular, debido a la reducción de la inversión pública esperada en los próximos años y con los gobiernos más alineados con la mayor mercantilización de los servicios sociales, es importante revisar la trayectoria del Estado de bienestar en sus orígenes y objetivos, para comprender cómo hemos llegado hasta ahora, qué podemos esperar del futuro y qué intervenciones son necesarias para acercarnos a una inclusión sensible del gran contingente de personas aún sujetas a una ciudadanía de segunda clase en Brasil. Para cumplir con este objetivo, este documento ha llevado a cabo una revisión bibliográfica convencional del Estado del Bienestar, enumerando de él las razones históricas de su surgimiento, la tipología de Esping-Andersen, la noción de funcionamiento y capacidadess de Amartya Sen, y períodos constitutivos de bienestar en Brasil.   PALABRAS CLAVE: Protección social. Desarrollo. Derechos sociales.  


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